


Téméraire: A Rosalie Hale Fanfiction

by julesrowe



Series: L'Appel Du Vide Saga [1]
Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alice Cullen is a walking spoiler alert, Angst, BAMF Leah Clearwater, BAMF Rosalie Hale, Charlie Swan deserves better, Dramatic, Emmett Cullen must be protected at all costs, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Leah Clearwater Deserves Better, Less Mopey Teenagers, More Depth of Characters, More World Building, No Bashing, No Bella Swan Bashing, Pining, Romance, Romanticism, Shapeshifters - Freeform, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29350872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julesrowe/pseuds/julesrowe
Summary: C'était l'appel du vide.Juliette Rowe believed it was her sole responsibility to live her life to the very fullest, for she had too much to live for. She had done it all by herself. She had packed up her whole life, moved across the Atlantic, and made it her daily mission to make her Uncle Charlie smile.Her great big American adventure would involve fireworks and road trips, and bonfires and pizza pockets. She would make the most of every moment, come rain or shine- of this she was determined. Life was to be lived, after all.The news of her imminent death was an unexpected fork in the road... along with the Aphrodite who played the role of her personal Grim Reaper.Pre-Twilight to Post. Slowbuild. Potentially AU Characters.(Charlie Swan deserves better/ More 3-Dimensional characters/ Leah Clearwater deserves better)
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Original Character(s), Leah Clearwater/Original Character(s), Leah Clearwater/Sam Uley, Rosalie Hale/Original Female Character(s), Sam Uley/Emily Young
Series: L'Appel Du Vide Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155956
Comments: 45
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter I: Just A Girl

**_Oh I'm just a girl, living in captivity_ **

**_Your rule of thumb makes me worrisome_ **

**_Oh I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?_ **

**_What I've succumbed to is making me numb_ **

Jules could feel the relief flood her veins as her plane landed at William R. Fairchild International Airport. Her left ear had blocked entirely from the air pressure ten minutes into her first flight from Charles de Gaulle to Schiphol. That had been thirteen or so hours ago. This was it, this was the end of having to deal with everything on her own. All she had to do was get through customs and immigration, find her luggage, and find the policeman that was set to be waiting for her somewhere outside.

Jules remembered her excitement as a child, making this exact same trip every summer to visit her grandparents in America. It had seemed a great big adventure back then, all the planes and the connecting flights at massive international airports. America had seemed a distant dream then, a rare delight. She had been born there, in the little town of Forks Washington, a place her mother had called her home her entire life. For the first two years of Juliette Rowe's life, she was raised an American child in a small American household with two adoring parents, grandparents, and an aunt, an uncle and a cousin. A full family.

Then her mother passed away. Her father never recovered, the heartbreak turning into full on raging depression and alcoholism. It had been her paternal grandmother in France who had stepped in and intervened at last. And so her father saw fit to pack up his entire life and move his daughter to France, where she was raised with the help of her eccentric grandmother. Every summer, the trio would make the trip to America so Jules would never forget where her mother was from.

Jules had watched everyone she had ever loved die, in a sense. Despite the distance she had remained close to her maternal grandparents, especially her Grandpa Geoffrey. Her grandmother Helen had been deep in the throes of Alzheimers for as long as she had been alive, but her Grandfather had been present and had adored her more than anyone, despite his limited mobility as the years wore on. It had been Grandma Helen to go first after the passing of her mother, and then Grandpa Geoff when she was six.

On the flipside, Mamie Éloise had been her entire world. Jules finally understood her father's constant battle with depression when she lost her grandmother when she was thirteen. She felt as if the sun would never shine again on her life, as if she understood what it felt to drift endlessly as a ghost upon the mortal plane. She was alive, yes, but she no longer _lived_. The melancholia became a part of her, and her Uncle Charlie understood when she and her father decided to stop spending their summers in America. They both had issues with grief, issues they needed to face together during the times when they could truly focus on it without the interference of school or work.

By the time Jules turned sixteen, she had thought the two of them had finally come out of the dark ages together. That she finally felt whole again. She had good friends, she had a social life. She had dreams and goals and ambitions. She had begun to feel what it was to feel wonder again. She spent her days in the sun in the parks of Paris, surrounded by her comrades in arms, flinging from one adventure to the next in the bustling crowds of the city. To her, the past year had been nothing short of the greatest of her life.

And then her father died.

This time, Jules did not have the time to grieve. There were too many sudden complications to juggle, too many loose strings to tie up. She had suddenly felt as if her entire world had been flooded as she struggled to swim to the surface amongst the ever-mounting paperwork and chaos that fell in the wake of her sudden new status as an orphan. She had done it all by herself. She had sorted out her father's affairs at his work, she had dealt with the death paperwork and all the rest. She had seen to the funeral arrangements all on her own- a small affair, her father only ever left the house for work, he did not have friends and he did not speak often to his colleagues, but it was nice of them to attend. Her friends had attended, but she had not spoken to them since the news, and she had left it quite awkward as she continued to avoid their attempts at helping her _after_ the funeral.

She packed up the house by herself, made the arrangements with her Uncle Charlie, sold her childhood home and shipped off what she deemed too important to leave behind. With the same level of meticulous precision, she had kept herself busy right until the very end, which had led her to this moment, walking out of the airport breathing a huge sigh of relief at the sight of the same fuzzy half-grimace half-smile of her brand new guardian.

Fuzzy- because Charlie Swan had the most singularly atrocious moustache Jules had ever seen in her entire short life.

"Hi kiddo." Charlie pushed off of the trunk of his police cruiser after she approached, wrapping one arm around her shoulders as she leaned up a little on her tip toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "You get taller?"

"No I shrunk." Jules deadpanned flatly, earning a dry snort from her mother's older brother. He didn't look much different to the last time she had seen him, four summers prior. The moustache was new, and there were a few extra lines on his already too busy forehead. His hair was cut the same way it always had been, dark and short. His skin was still as pale as wax. He was wearing his uniform, promoted now to the Chief of Police. It was nice to see that not much had changed. Jules' eyes, however, could not tear away from the furry beast atop his lip. "Why the pornstache?"

And with this Charlie pulled away entirely with a roll of his eyes. "Yeah, you're holding up pretty good."

"Thirteen hours of flying Uncle Charlie, I think I'm just running on delirium and fumes here." Jules sighed, the two working together as Charlie popped open the trunk of his cruiser, sliding in her singular suitcase and her duffel bag of clothes. Everything else had been shipped in advance. "What's the plan?"

"Hungry?" He asks, grunting as he shut the trunk and they parted ways to get into the cruiser. It was mid-September in Washington, it wasn't the coldest weather Jules had been exposed to but it was nippy out, the air cool from what appeared to be recent rainfall judging by the puddles on the tarmac. "We can go to the diner for some dinner, or we can order pizza."

"Pizza's fine, all I want is a hot shower to wash away the plane germs and then the chance to be absorbed by your couch."

Charlie chuckled at his niece, pulling his seatbelt on. He'd been worried about too much for no reason it seemed. He thought he wouldn't know the first thing about handling a teenage girl, let alone a _French_ teenage girl. He had expected a depressed shell of a girl, the guilt eating him away as he struggled to sleep at night wishing he could afford to fly to France just to take care of her himself so she didn't have to endure all she had to alone. He didn't fully recognize the young woman in his cruiser- his niece had always been more soft-spoken, more well-mannered and more tomboyish in nature. She spent her summers in Forks drawing with his daughter up in her bedroom, catching butterflies in the yard and making mudpies with Jacob Black. She had enjoyed the fishing trips his daughter always excused herself from, enjoyed racing up and down First Beach trying to find treasures amongst the rock pools. She'd spend her sunsets teaching Bella how to roast marshmallows on a campfire.

The young woman next to him now was a stranger. Her voice had dropped, deeper and lower than he had expected, a rasp to it he assumed to be from travel. She'd developed a lilt to her English now, probably from the three years she had not had to use it. His niece had once had one defining feature, the largest lips he had ever seen on a kid most often than not stretched out into the biggest, goofiest dimpled grin. She had inherited them from her father's side of the family, along with most of her looks, and she had been teased about them her entire childhood from what he remembered her grandmother telling him. Now she had grown into them, her jawline strong, her cheeks hollow and her cheekbones high and proud. Her full lips no longer looked odd, her dainty nose above them perfectly straight. Her hair was the same golden brown as her father's, skin milky and clear. She was taller than Charlie had expected, easily five foot ten with the potential to still grow if her father's height had been anything to go by. She was skinnier now, the cute baby fat from before long gone.

Charlie grimaced at the realization he had to worry about a lot more than he'd thought of with his pretty French niece. The boys in town were going to be an unexpected hurdle.

"I wish I was coming here under better circumstances." Jules cuts into the comfortable silence as Charlie drove towards Forks. She turned to him as he glanced her way, smiling briefly but brightly. "But I'm glad I'm here. I missed you."

Charlie felt a funny warmth in his heart, smiling awkwardly back before dropping it, nodding and turning back to the road. "You too kiddo."

"You don't have to treat me like I'm gonna spontaneously combust, Uncle Charlie." Jules rolled her eyes with a smile, and the man shifted sheepishly in response. "Dad's dead. It sucks, I'm dealing with it. But I'm not falling into a depression again, I'm not wasting any more of my life on feeling like shit. I've seen what that does to people. I'm not doing that. I can't."

"You don't gotta." Charlie shrugged, bristling at the way she so casually spoke about the crippling depression that had taken over her father's entire life. "Deal with it how you wanna deal with it. Doesn't make you a bad person."

Her shoulders dropped with relief. "Okay, cool. Next order of business then- where am I sleeping?"

"Downstairs bedroom." He answers, earning a furrow of eyebrows in confusion. Charlie blushed. "I uh…I converted the dining room after the last summer you spent here. Figured you were getting too big to keep sharing a room, and I didn't want you all the way down at the motel with your Dad."

_While he drank himself to oblivion._

"I'm sorry I never got to see it." Jules' tone softens. She knows there was more to Charlie's words, she knows he had built another bedroom so her grandmother and her would have a space of their own instead of taking over the Swan household every summer and feeling guilty about it. Charlie spent each of those summers crashing on the couch so that her grandmother and her could take over his room. She had never known Charlie had gone through all the effort of making an extra bedroom before her world came crashing down. It made her feel all the more guilty for cutting off her summer visits, but she knew it had felt necessary then.

"S'okay. Glad I did it now." Charlie shrugged again. "Still only one bathroom though."

"Eh, it's fine." Jules waved off, folding one leg under the other as she shifted in her seat, looking out the window. "Don't really have a lot of stuff anyway."

At this, Charlie smiled. _She's still my niece._

"Okay, next on the cohabitation rules list. If you're up before me, you're making coffee. I'm making breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fair deal?" Jules raised an eyebrow.

"I'll do the dishes when I can." Charlie flushed at Jules' pointed decision. He didn't know his niece could cook, but they both knew he couldn't. "Uh…laundry…"

"Got it covered." Jules bats off. "I like being busy, let me be busy. Please."

"Hey, you ain't gonna hear me complaining kid." Charlie chuckled. "Uh, the guys come around on Fridays. Game night. Living room's next to your door so it could get a little loud."

Juliette's lips twitched upward into a smile. "Maybe you can finally teach me how American football works."

Suddenly Charlie didn't think living with a teenage girl was going to be so bad.


	2. Chapter II: Here Comes Your Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Trigger Warning- Brief mentions of suicide and substance abuse at the end of this chapter. Do not read if these topics may be triggering for you. Jules briefly touches on the circumstances surrounding her father's death, and her own personal emotions about their strained relationship.

Jules didn't remember much of her first night in Forks. The jetlag and exhaustion had gotten to her, all she really recalled was the comfort of her hot shower before she'd sat on the couch with Charlie eating pizza and watching some American sitcom she didn't recognize. He insisted on clearing up, and so she'd brushed her teeth and crashed into her bed.

In the morning, her 'new' old alarm clock came alive with the radio, the irony of _Here Comes The Sun_ not lost on her as her ears registered the sound of heavy raindrops against her windowpane. She squinted awake, grimacing with a scrunch of her nose.

_Note to self: get thicker curtains._

Her new bedroom was easily a mere fraction of the size of the large attic loft she had to herself in Paris. It had only really been designed to fit a long, old oak table and six chairs, but Charlie had clearly put in a lot of hours to make her feel like she had her own space. The door to the kitchen had been sealed up as if it had never been there in the first place, covered instead by the three door antique blue chalk-painted wardrobe Jules had claimed from her grandmother's bedroom in Paris and shipped across the Atlantic. Next to the wardrobe was a paint splattered desk that had once been painted a sunny yellow when Jules was a child, but now was a chipping faded thing- another nostalgic import from Paris. Her wire framed single bed was pushed up against the wall opposite, between two bookshelves with the large window over the entire bed. One of the bookshelves was stacked full of books Charlie had been kind enough to already unpack, the other housed her and her grandmother's music collection and a record player that had clearly seen better days. In the narrow space between this sleeping nook and the desk and wardrobe, a solid door gave her access to the living room, and another door with a glass panel let her go outside and around back to the back patio.

The latter door was blocked by her suitcases and several cardboard boxes labelled 'clothes'. Jules knew Charlie had left them untouched because he was likely allergic to the very thought of coming across her delicates, and Jules was glad for the thoughtful privacy. Today was the first official day of her life in America, and she was going to take it one step at a time.

_First things first- cut the music._

She reached out, knowing the location of the old flip clock alarm Charlie had gotten her from god knows where, which she had set the night before to wake her up in time to make breakfast. It was just a struggle to reach blindly for it on the bookshelf behind her head. _There must be a better place for this monstruosité._ She had never been fond of alarm clocks- it was why she had needed one in the first place, she'd thrown her last one at the wall.

Juliette Rowe was a great many things, but a morning person was not one of them. Her first battle with the alarm clock had put her into a foul mood, and she emerged bedraggled and uncaring from her too-bright room, wearing an oversized faded grey Black Sabbath t-shirt that fell to her mid-thighs over her flannel pyjama shorts. She made her way up to the bathroom barefoot, but she did not feel any more awake by the time she returned downstairs. If anything, Jules was certain she felt worse.

Charlie chuckled the moment he saw her entering the kitchen with a glare, rubbing her eyes, her hair wild. "Good morning to you too."

"Bite me." Jules scowled deeper, earning a snort from her Uncle who sat at the dinette, drinking coffee and reading the paper. She was grateful to see that Charlie had prepared the drip pot already, pouring herself a mug with the reminder and then precisely adding only enough drops of milk for her drink to take on the colour of hazelnut, _une grande noisette_. "Breakfast?"

"Think you're up for it?" Charlie's tone was gruff, but his eyes were mirthful as she turned to give him another dirty look over her bony shoulder. Charlie chuckles again. "What's on the menu?"

"Hmmmmm…." Jules sipped her near-scalding coffee, too impatient to wait for it to cool down as she returned the milk to the fridge and inspected it's sad contents. "Omelette? With…is this cheese? Whatever this need to go grocery shopping."

"Omelet's fine." Charlie assures her as she shuts the fridge door, sipping more coffee as she started digging through the cabinets for a bowl and a pan. "I can drive you today, took the weekend off."

"You didn't have to do that." Jules answered back, moving steadily through gathering all the things she needed for her task. Charlie only grunts in response. "Do you not have any herbs at all? _Mon dieu_."

"Uh, there might be some Italian herb packets from the pizza last night up there." Charlie grimaced as he pointed out a little basket on a shelf above her head.

"My good man, this time next year, you will have a stomach that reaches that table. This I can promise you." Jules vows firmly at him with a nod, and despite Charlie's reserved nature, he bursts into full belly laughter. And after a beat, Jules grins and then follows him.

By the time Charlie had driven them to the grocery store in the cruiser, he was more cheerful than he could remember being in years. They'd spent the morning jabbing barbed remarks at each other, sharing the same dry snarky humour. Charlie had moaned over Jules' makeshift omelette du fromage, playfully keeping her away with his palm outstretched when his teenage niece changed her mind on skipping breakfast and tried to steal a bite from his plate, spending a good five minutes wrestling for the plate. It had broken down any barriers the two had had. Over the course of the next three hours, until they got to the grocery store, Charlie had felt his heart swell and swell more, the emptiness of his strained relationship with his ex-wife and daughter beginning to fill up with Jules and her free personality. Charlie had shook his head and chuckled listening to her sing along to his radio.

She'd been laughing at something he had said when they entered the store, eyes bright and hands stuffed into the pockets of the denim overalls she wore beneath her grey wool coat. This was the first sight that greeted Mrs. Stanley who happened to be taking out a cart to start her regular Saturday shopping, her daughter at her side. The two openly gawked at the sight of Charlie Swan and the strangely dressed towering willowy brunette next to him. And then it dawned on the town gossip. "Juliette?!"

Jules flushed, eyes connecting with the familiar woman her grandmother had absolutely _loathed_ when they made the trip to Forks Federal Bank to exchange their money. She exchanged a look with her Uncle, who shot one back as they walked together to the shopping carts. "Hi Mrs Stanley, it's good to see you again."

"Good Lord Above, it _is_ you, isn't it?" The woman clutched a hand to her chest dramatically. "I didn't know you were visiting town! Isn't it a little late in the year, dear? Don't you have school?"

"Not a visit." Charlie grunts, before mumbling under his breath, Jules catching the grumbled displeasure at meeting the insufferable town gossip. She shot him a betrayed glare, plastering her politest smile at the petite portly woman and her even more petite mouse-like daughter- who gawked up at her openly.

"My father passed two months ago." Jules supplied shortly and swiftly, keeping the smile on her face as she cut the suddenly horrified looking woman from offering her condolences, squeezing Charlie's shoulder next to her as she shook it- silently keeping him from making an escape with the shopping cart. "So _this_ old man is stuck with me now, for good, hmm? You're looking at the newest resident of Forks, Washington. I start school here on Monday, non? Yes. I landed last night."

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry." Mrs. Stanley's eyebrows furrowed, and for once her expression looked genuine, her Texan accent thick. "If you need anything- _ever-_ we're still just two roads down on Fairbank. Don't hesitate."

"That is most kind of you." Jules nodded with an amused smile. _This time tomorrow the whole town will know, so hopefully everyone will stop asking_. "Thank you."

"Well, if you need help at school- my daughter Jessica here's in her last year of Junior High. I'm sure she'd be happy to have another friend, right Jessica dear?" Mrs Stanley offered while Jessica's expression dropped and her eyebrows furrowed together, opening her mouth to clearly refute- but Charlie beat her to it.

"No, that's Bella you're confusing there Barb." Charlie supplies helpfully. "Jules is a year older, she's going to be a Freshman at Forks High."

"Oh look at us all, making a roadblock." Jules chuckled charmingly glancing around pointedly at the way they held up the entrance area into the small grocery, even though there was hardly anyone else there. "It was nice seeing you again Mrs Stanley- and it was a pleasure to meet you Jessica. Perhaps I will see you at school next year, hmm? Enjoy your shopping!"

"Finally." Charlie complained as Jules tugged him past the two. "Why'd you talk to her so much? That's gonna spread like wildfire."

"Precisely." Jules smirked smugly as she plucked a loaf of bread as they ducked into an aisle, making distance between themselves and the Stanleys. "If the whole town knows by tomorrow- like they _should have already known if someone had warned them."_

Charlie flushed, and she continued after her glowering look. "-the more they know, the less they'll ask. Simple, non?"

"Gotta remember that." Charlie grimaced, rubbing the back of his head.

Unfortunately, Mrs Stanley was the first of many. It seemed most of the town chose to do their groceries on Saturday mornings, something Jules took note of to avoid in the future. Most of them had never seen Jules, but they had all heard of the Chief's French niece who visited in the summers, and curious and gossipy like all small town people were, they all found some way or another to approach Charlie and jovially ask to be introduced to the mystery brunette at his side. Jules found herself repeatedly accepting condolences on the behest of her late father- more condolences, she was certain, than she had had to accept at his own funeral.

Charlie found it strange how her mood did not seem to change as she perused aisle after aisle with methodical precision, seeming to memorize where each item was, taking her time to inspect all the things she did not recognize which he had to explain. Despite the slight French accent, he hadn't realized how different his niece's upbringing had been until he had to explain what Hot Pockets were as she scrunched up her nose the more and more he explained. Charlie had expected her to grow more sullen the more people brought up her father, a topic he had avoided on purpose, but Jules spoke as casually about his death as she did about the weather.

Charlie spent the vast majority of the rest of the day stewing over whether or not he should bring the topic up, and Jules noticed- if anything, it seemed to grow and grow more and more annoying the longer she was in his distracted state.

"Come on old man, out with it." She finally confronted him as she waved her fork around in his direction, sat opposite him in the kitchen as they ate the best lasagne Charlie had tasted in his life. Jules decided tray bakes were the way to go, the leftovers would keep when she was too busy to cook with schoolwork, and when she was more free she could make healthier one-off meals. Charlie only raised an eyebrow at her. "Something has been bothering you all day- I remember what you're like, hmm? If I don't poke you with a stick you won't tell me what it is."

Charlie rolled his eyes, making a grouchy sound halfway between a huff and a grunt. "You're not sad about your father."

She rolled her eyes this time, eyes shooting down at her plate as she neatly prepared another bite of pasta. "I told you, I do not intend to waste my life feeling like-"

"No, Jules." He cut her off, more firm this time, reminding himself that he was the adult in this situation no matter how much his niece was clearly- and rather unnervingly- used to being self-sufficient. "If you're living under my roof, I need to understand, alright? Don't ask me not to notice things. I'm a cop. I notice things."

Jules set her fork down, chewing her pasta as she leaned back in her chair, raising an eyebrow at him unimpressed. It was as if she was challenging him, staring him down like an angsty teenager. _Really? You want to do this?_

Charlie, to his credit, didn't even blink as he continued to chew the cheesy goodness in his mouth, staring her straight down. She caved in with a sigh, turning to the side, away from his gaze and out the rain trickling down the windows that fit along the breakfast nook that had transformed into the only dining area in the small two-story home. Her jaw clenched once, brief, before shrugging. "We had not been on good terms for some time."

Her uncle had suspected this. "How do you mean?"

Jules shrugged again, meeting his eyes. _You tell me._ "We dealt with Mamie's passing differently. It was not good. I did not eat, I did not sleep, I was there but I was not _there,_ you know what I mean? It was _bad_. But he was _worse_."

Charlie frowned.

"Eventually, I got help, I met new friends, they brought me out of it." Jules shrugged once more, going back to eating. "He didn't get any better. I thought maybe…he started a new job, it seemed like he was trying. We weren't speaking, but he was trying at least."

"He started drinking again." Charlie realized where she was going with this, his expression grim and disappointed. Jules nodded, not looking up again. "How bad did it get?"

Jules shrugged, she didn't want to talk about it anymore. She didn't want to think about it again. Charlie frowned, his heart sinking into the pit of his stomach. "Jules…he didn't…"

"No, never." She dismisses quickly with a frown. "We just argued a lot. Well, _I_ argued a lot- he never stayed to hear it. And then he-"

She shook her head, scowling down at her plate. "He didn't even leave a note. He didn't even say goodbye. I didn't even know he was gone until the police came to my door Charlie."

Charlie's heart broke for his niece, and she let out a bitter laugh, eyes swimming with unshed tears. "And the funeral! God, what a a sad little pointless joke. That's the funny thing, isn't it? His whole life was so inconsequential, and…and he had been the only one to see it. I get it now. I didn't before, not until he was gone. I don't even _miss him._ How fucked up is that? How do you miss someone who was never _there_?"

"I'm glad I'm here." She shakes out of it, taking a deep breath and wiping the tears away before smiling at him- a genuine, warm and grateful smile as she reached across the table to take his hand. "In just a day you have been more of a family to me than I have had in a long time. I've missed it. I've missed _you_."

Charlie smiled a watery smile, nodding, not daring to say a word as he cleared his throat and pulled his hand back, going back to his pasta.


	3. Chapter III: Come As You Are

Jules didn't really pay attention to the staring on her first day of American high school. She was too sleepy to really care, dragging herself out of bed and forcing herself to pull on the first things she could out of the wardrobe she had spent most of Sunday unpacking at last. Most of her clothes were from the vintage stores and flea markets she had been obsessed with since childhood in Paris, a lover of all things quirky and aged. This time she had donned a dark grey Keith Richards t-shirt with pink bold letters spelling out 'JE NE REGRETTE RIEN' around his pink bust, tucked into faded 501s. She was more proud of herself for being coherent enough to pick a pink vintage Dior coat to match her t-shirt than she was anything else.

If her outfit wasn't loud enough in a town where most people wore hiking gear as fashion, she certainly did not help the staring with her grand entrance- skating into the parking lot of Forks High on a pair of bright blue retro skates with vivid yellow laces and yellow wheels to match. She looked perfectly unfazed, the chilly wind flowing through her hair, biting into half-eaten multigrain bagel with a stainless steel tumbler of coffee in her other hand. Earphones flowed down from her gold pierced ears, blasting _Rebel Rebel_ loud enough that the teenagers she whizzed past could catch a muffled guitar flare.

Jules didn't come to a stop until she'd reached an empty bench, her bagel finished as she daintily wiped her lips of any crumbs before making quick work of swapping her skates for dark brown loafers. And then she was off, her skates flung by their tied-together laces over her tall shoulder, the same one that sported her hand-painted backpack. She continued to sip her drink as she rushed, making sure her stride was too fast for anyone to try to speak to her, the earphones and loud music a clear message that matched the look in her eyes- _I'm not in the mood._

And yet, like magic, her expression shifted entirely as she entered the small reception of the administrative building, poor Mrs Cope doing a double take. "Bonjour! Is this where I am supposed to pick up my schedule?"

"Oh! Oh yes, you must be Miss Rowe, we've been expecting you." Mrs Cope jumped into action, flustered as the amused brunette ventured further into the room and up to the desk, setting her coffee down on the counter. Forcibly, she kept the smile stretched upon her lips. _Always stay in the good books of the receptionist._ The greying stout woman flittered through stacks of paper, clearly in a state. "Most of our students came and picked up their schedules and books last week during orientation, so the good news is you won't have to wait any lines. Aha! That's where that went."

"Right, Juliette Elizabeth Rowe. Sixteen years old?" Mrs Cope returned with a bright smile.

"August the 22nd, 1986." Jules confirmed with a nod. "I hope all the paperwork is in order, I did request for English translations but I'm not sure how they came out."

"Oh it's all fine dear." Mrs Cope waved off, starting to set out paper after paper. "Now, this here is a map of the school, I've marked out a code over the classes you've signed up for, and I wrote them out on your schedule. Hopefully you won't get lost- it's not all that big but you never know. This here is your schedule, you'll start every day at homeroom, that's here, with Mister Berty. He's one of the English teachers here, he'll be yours for this year. This is where your locker is, I've marked it down as L on the map. Here's the number, and here's the combination. Now, _very important_ , I need each of your teachers to sign this and I need you to bring it here at the end of today. If you need anything else don't hesitate to come back right here and I'll help you out, alright?"

"I think I've got it, thank you so much Mrs Cope." Jules absorbs all the information as best as she can as the kind woman beams again at her. "Have a wonderful day."

"You too dear- Welcome to Forks!"

Jules was quite grateful that the woman hadn't offered her condolences, half expecting it by this point as she returned the earphones to her ears and pressed play on the heavy square iPod in her coat pocket once more, making her way down the crowded corridors with her map in hand. It wasn't hard to find her locker, helpfully close to her homeroom class. She dumped her skates inside, along with half of the textbooks Charlie had been helpful enough to pick up for her the week before. She checked what she would need for the first half of her school day before lunch, and off she went just before a short blond boy could approach her.

Mister Berty was a short unimpressive man with dark grey hair and his nose up in the air as she entered his classroom. Jules could see that this man looked as annoyed on the outside as she did on the inside at the rowdy teenagers chattering away, though his beady eyes turned to her and seemed to light up. Unfortunately- so had the rest of the class, turning seemingly in tandem like a creepy hive mind species, setting Jules' nerves on fire as she briefly froze halfway through her stride in the open doorway. _So this is what people in horror movies feel like._

She took one earphone out, smiling briefly at the man in the grey suit at his desk as she offered him the slip Mrs Cope had warned her about. "Ah yes, our new foreign student…Miss Rowe, was it?"

"I'm half-American sir, but sure." Jules fought a snort at his haughty condescending tone, signing her slip slower than necessary as if inspecting it for fraud. She tried desperately not to squint at him.

"Juliette Rowe." He tests on his tongue. "Were your parents fans of Shakespeare?"

"Not particularly." She dismisses casually, used to this reference. "My grandfather was named Jules, I was named after him."

"How unfortunate." His tone flattens, displeased. Jules furrowed her eyebrows. "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Oh! How rude of me. I did not check if you would struggle with English, should you need any help at all Miss Rowe, I would be happy to tutor-"

"Thank you." She cuts off the man before he can offer his creepy leering services. "But I am quite proficient at Literature, and I'm fluent in English despite my accent."

"How proficient?" He squints. "Favourite prose?"

"The Great Gatsby, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings."

"Plays?"

"A Streetcar Named Desire, Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya." She recites with ease off the top of her head.

"Hmm." He seemed annoyed that she had passed his little test so fluidly. Jules fought the urge to smirk. _Tiny little man_. "Take a seat Miss Rowe."

"Sir." She nods politely, slipping her earphone back in as she collected the signed slip, stuffing it into her coat pocket as she dodged between desks and found an empty one at the back, setting her coffee tumbler down in front of her as she let her bag drop to the ground.

The girl sat directly in front of her swivelled around, her face spread into a mirthful grin as she stuck out a hand for a fistbump. "Okay _you_ are my new favourite superhero, I've never seen him that mad in my life. Ella Moore."

"Jules Rowe." Jules bumped her fist with amusement, using her other hand to tug out one of her earphones. The girl was pretty, and Jules found it entertaining how easily she could muster what stereotype of American High School clique she fit into by her mere appearance, just like in the movies. Her eyes swept over the sports hoodie she would not be caught dead in outside of her house, a pair of clearly worn running trainers adorning her feet. Her dark hair was pulled back into a sleek high ponytail that Jules classified with volleyball, highlighting her strong bone structure and flawless mocha skin. She was easily taller than Jules, something she had not expected. _Definitely a volleyball player._

"Yeah I heard." Ella dismissed the formalities, unwittingly slipping herself into Jules' good books. "Actually, I can't _stop_ hearing. People kinda won't shut up about you skating into school this morning, you'd think you were a celebrity or something."

"Or something." Jules hummed, sipping more coffee. "I apologize- you seem nice, I'm just not awake enough to be pleasant."

" _And_ you are now my new best friend." Ella jokes, turning to take a pen out of her pencil case before returning to face Jules, uncaringly plucking the latter's wrist as Jules raised an eyebrow, drinking more coffee as the American girl pushed back her coat sleeve enough to scrawl a number along her pale wrist. "If I don't see you until lunch, text me. You can sit with me and my friends, I promise a gossip-free environment."

"Tempting." Jules answered, still too mournful of the warm bed she had left behind to be more witty. "Wait- that mad in your life? Aren't you a freshman too?"

"My mom's the school nurse." Ella rolls her eyes. " _And_ he lives down the street, so I _literally_ can't escape him. I swear that man's out to get me, like he'll for sure be the reason I go all Jeffrey Dahmer and commit small town murder."

"My Uncle's a cop, I can bail you out." Jules offered amused. "And if he says no I can hatch an escape plan."

"I knew I liked you. I have good instincts, you're cool shit Frenchie."

"Enjoying patting yourself on the back there?"

And so Jules had made her first ever American friend.


	4. Chapter IV: Under Pressure

By the time Jules got back to the house, she was ready to burst. The entire day had overwhelmed her unlike anything she had experienced before, the information overload threatening to tear her apart. She rushed up the stone porch steps, not even bothering with her key as she shifted the locks with a twist of her outstretched fingers, slamming it shut behind her as she leaned against the painted wood heavily, exhaling deeply as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her hair was windswept from her trip back, entire demeanour ruffled and chaotic.

"You okay?"

Jules would never admit that she let out a girlish shriek, but she did, ripping her skates off her shoulder ready and aimed as she jumped towards the manly voice. Relief flooded her at once as she saw her Uncle in his uniform, leaned up against the open doorway of the living room with folded arms and mirthful eyes. Jules glowered at him, jabbing the dangling skates once in his direction before turning around to put them away. She would clean them later, she was too exhausted to deal with anything other than a hot shower and her bed. "That bad, huh?"

"Well now I know how it feels to be a zoo animal." Jules sighed dramatically, taking her backpack and her coat off. "If one more teacher asks me if I'm struggling to comprehend their English I- alright, perhaps I should apologize in advance if you have to pick me up from the principal's office in the new future."

"Don't you dare." Charlie warned her sharply, following her as she walked past him to get to her room. "Did you make friends?"

"Hmm, one. She offered for me to join her table at lunch but I had a headache. Jetlag." Jules explained shortly. This was not a complete lie, the more begrudgingly awake and aware Jules became as the morning progressed, the more her nerves were frayed by the ogling and the murmuring- until she decided sitting in a crowded congregated space was going to be too much of a headache to be worth whatever tragic food the cafeteria would undoubtedly serve. Instead, she had picked up an apple from the lunch line and made her way outside, enjoying the fresh air and the smell of wet forest around the little empty outdoor courtyard area. Ella had understood, and Jules had been grateful- she needed to process her new reality bit by bit, not all at once. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

"Break." Charlie answered. "Figured I'd check in, it's your first day."

"You didn't need to but thank you." Jules tossed her backpack through the open door of her room, lingering with a smile in Charlie's direction. He just shrugged. "I'll probably just sleep off some of the jetlag, wake me up when you get home?"

"Yeah, sure." Charlie nodded, before seeming to hesitate. "Uh, Billy called to check in."

"Oh?" Jules raised an eyebrow, leaning her back against her doorframe. Billy Black and Harry Clearwater were regular features of her childhood summers in America, she always felt like she'd spent more time on the Quileute Reservation than she did in the dull town of Forks itself- much to the eternal gloom of her indoor-loving cousin.

"How do you feel about a trip to First Beach?" He tucked his hands into his police jacket pockets with a wince, as if afraid of her answer.

"When?" Jules scrunched one eye up along with the left side of her face, praying for all that it was worth that she had enough time to just crash in her bed and have a moment to herself.

"Six-ish? I should be home around then." Charlie offers. Jules floods with relief.

"I'll be ready."

And she was. Jules didn't end up napping like she thought she would, too awake after her shower as her mind raced on. Instead she laid in her bed and stared up at the white ceiling, replaying every interaction she had had on her first day of school in America. By the time Charlie had gotten home and showered, changing into one of what Jules assumed to be many flannel shirts- she was already ready for him, tugging on a worn brown suede biker jacket. "You look like you're doing better."

"Mhmm. Are we leaving now?" She flipped her hair out from under the collar.

"Sure." Charlie's a little surprised at how quick she'd gotten ready, having prepared himself for a long wait. "Uh, you done?"

"Yep." She pops the p, shutting her bedroom door behind her before leaning against it to pull on her black felt boots rather gracelessly over popcorn printed socks. "I call dibs on the radio."

Charlie rolled his eyes, following her out towards the door as he took his keys off the hook in the entryway. "Do you remember everyone or do you need a crash course?"

"It's been three years Uncle Charlie, I don't have amnesia." Jules rolled her eyes as she stepped out into the brisk evening air, the temperature drop significant enough to notice. "Shit."

"Language kid." Charlie warns her half-heartedly, earning a middle finger that has him chuckling despite himself. "You aren't gonna make my job easy, are ya?"

"Nope." Jules agreed simply and cheerfully, popping open the passenger side door of his cruiser. "At least I behave where it matters."

"Like what?" Charlie snorts in disbelief.

"No drinks, no drugs, no parties." She lists as they both get in, shutting the doors in tandem behind them before pulling on their seatbelts.

"That's fair." Charlie hummed thoughtfully. "Who do you remember?"

"The Blacks." Jules listed out as she reached over for the radio under the police CB she had been banned from touching, Charlie beginning to pull out from their driveway. She winced. "How're they holding up after Sarah?"

"Eh." Charlie bristled. "I'm sure the twins could use a friend who understands what it's like."

"It's not the same." Jules shook her head, leaning back against her seat as she propped one jeanclad leg over her knee, patting her hand on her thigh along to the bass-heavy thumping tune of the Bee Gees song that streamed throughout the car. "So what's the event?"

"No event, just a grill out on the beach." Charlie shrugs, welcoming the change in topic. "Harry caught some good fish, and Billy's bringing the sausages. We can pick up drinks on the way."

"Warn me next time? I can make something for everyone." Jules furrowed her eyebrows at her Uncle. Charlie nodded firmly, and they drove on.

By the time the two arrived at First Beach on the Quileute Reservation, the sun was low on the cloudy horizon and Jules could see ant-like people gathered around a low fire amongst massive curled driftwood logs. It was a long walk getting down to the beach from the parking area, and Jules struggled sharing the load of a cooler full of canned drinks with her Uncle. They dropped it unceremoniously on the sand as old Billy Black grinned and called out from where he had been laughing with a much older man. "Hey! There they are!"

"We were beginning to worry you might never show." Harry Clearwater joked from another log as Charlie went in to greet his friends jovially, Jules smiling at the cheerful sight as she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets, lagging behind.

"Jules!" A familiar voice saved her from interrupting Charlie's bromance, Juliette's eyes lighting up at Rachel Black waving her over. "Come on!"

"Hey!" Jules greeted back fondly, twirling on her ankle to beeline straight for where the twins sat in the corner with a pretty couple Jules didn't recognize. Jules kept her cold hands in her jacket pockets as she dipped down to kiss Rachel and Rebecca on their cheeks, unceremoniously dropping herself onto the sand before criss-crossing her long legs. "It's been so long, I've missed you guys."

"How've you been holding up?" Rebecca looked like she wanted to talk about anything else at all, squirming in her worn denim jacket. Jules shot her a look with a raised eyebrow. The older Black twin grimaced. "We meant to keep in touch…"

"You had shit to deal with." Jules shook her head. "So did I. Trust me- it's all good."

"Have you met Leah and Sam?" Rachel, who Jules had always been closer to, offered the perfect escape route to the topic of their dead loved ones as Jules smiled at the cheerful couple on Rebecca's other side. "Leah's Harry Clearwater's eldest- don't let the googoo eyes fool you, they only met a week ago."

"Rach!" Leah blushed furiously, the colour pretty on her sharp tan cheekbones. Jules only grinned widely, her dimples popping out at the cute couple. "It's nice to meet you. I feel like I already know you, my Dad never shut up about you when you came down to visit."

"Yeah, I've heard stories about you too." Jules chuckled as Leah's expression dropped and Sam laughed silently next to the girl he had his lanky arm around. "I feel like we were meant to hang out once?"

"You ditched for Jake." Leah remembered, rolling her eyes.

"Where is the little pipsqueak?" Jules looked around, trying to find the little boy she used to babysit during the summer with her cousin Bella.

"Probably at the rock pools with his friends. You remember those, don't you Jules?" Rachel teased her as she flushed. "Jules was convinced she'd find an oyster pearl one day, spent every minute she could out there digging around in them with a stick."

"Remember when Bella slipped and knocked Jules out on her ass right into the big pool? She was like a human wood chipper, her teeth kept going chh-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chhh the whole trip home." Rebecca laughed as she mimicked the chatter of teeth, and Jules scowled at the twins while everyone laughed at her. "Gosh, look at you now. It's crazy."

"Don't you start." Jules groaned, too tired to deal with the commentary on her looks.

"That bad huh?" Leah understood at once with an amused smile.

"They wouldn't stop staring at school today." Jules pouted. "It was exhausting, I feel like every word I said today got shared around like a code to crack. It was so much attention, I don't get it. Why? Why would you care so much about someone else? It's stupid."

"If it makes you feel any better they gossip just as much when one of us go into town to eat at the diner or something." Leah offered kindly. "They're something else, the people in that town."

"I don't like them." Sam shrugged, reaching over to take a sausage on a stick off the mesh-rack grill covered in food above the fire. "The palefaces are kinda judgy. I went down to Newton's store once to buy some hiking boots with my mom and they watched us like we were gonna steal something."

"That's horrible." Jules frowned, thanking Rachel with a nod when she gets up and offers to get them all drinks. "Wait- you all go to school here, right? Not in Forks."

"No, we're on the Rez." Rebecca confirmed. "Leah and Sam would've been in the same year as you though."

"So would twin genius here but they skipped." Leah shot Rebecca a rueful smile, the latter sticking her tongue out at her from where she sat with her elbows on her knees. "If you want you can hang with us after school? I mean, you seem cool, and Charlie's always at my house anyway."

"Sounds fun." Jules smiled, relieved.

It was easier with the Quileute kids. Rachel and Rebecca weren't nearly as bright and bubbly as Jules remembered them to be, but she appreciated that the twins accepted and understood the same exhaustion she felt whenever someone brought up the people they had lost. Leah and Sam, meanwhile, were a breath of fresh air- and Jules found herself quickly bonding with Leah's naturally snarky personality and Sam's sense of adventure. The two were a lot more outdoorsy than the twins, and it wasn't long before the trio made plans to go hiking together on the weekend.

Little Jacob Black returned after the sun had long disappeared, two boys at his flanks as Jules jovially greeted the preteen who spent so much of his summer with her little cousin. He had stared at her awestruck, and Jules and the others couldn't help but to tease him constantly over it, entertaining themselves thoroughly throughout the barbecue.

Jules felt finally like she had somewhere she could belong.


	5. Chapter V: Bitter Sweet Symphony

The days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. Jules was proud to say she spent each one doing exactly as she liked, a million little mini-adventures melting off into a montage of memories she would not trade for the entire world.

Juliette Rowe had never been one for routines. In a town as mundane as Forks, Jules found she could nurture her impulsive nature to its greatest potential. She would stick to herself during her mandatory school hours, the ones she grew to loathe with a burning passion. She would aim to finish off her homework during her lunch periods, sitting on her own at a table the other students soon learnt to evade, her self-claimed territory. The only person she ever really spoke to was Ella Hammond, who she shared most of her classes with and chose to partner up with in any classes that required as such. Ella had joined the volleyball team though, and so the two never ventured past the 'school friends' boundary.

Most days, Leah Clearwater and Sam Uley would pick her up from school in Sam's beat up Chevy Blazer, already prepped and ready for some grand adventure. They would spend their days hiking a trail through the Olympic forest, picnicking on cliffs, gathered around a campfire on First Beach with Rachel and Rebecca and all their friends. On the weekends the group of them would make trips to Port Angeles to go see a movie, or as far as Seattle for as harebrained a scheme as buying Chinese ingredients so Jules could cook more food for everyone.

Charlie Swan's house transformed from a lonely two-story bachelor pad to a bustling home often filled with teenagers and adults alike, coming and going as they pleased. Jules and Charlie grew into a close knit pair, the two coexisting in a rather informal relationship. Jules brought Charlie out of his shell as much as Charlie Swan possibly could, but she never pushed him to be more than he was-a boundary the Chief of Police appreciated. Instead, whenever Charlie worked a particularly draining case or seemed frustrated about his strained relationship with his daughter, Jules would be there for him with a fancy home cooked meal he could hardly pronounce and a beer and a coke, eating on the couch together watching a game. It was nice to have the companionship they both so desperately craved.

For Jules, it was the summer after her freshman year that things began to fall apart.

Her cousin Bella had stopped coming to Forks for the summer two years after Jules herself cut her visits, something Jules suspected to be a consequence of her own decision. This meant that she had to sit through Charlie squirming for a whole day over whether or not to bring up the issue before she finally had enough and forced him to tell her what was on his mind. Charlie had spent two weeks out of the last summer in California with Bella, a trip he intended to repeat. He extended an invitation to his niece- as did Bella through him as a proxy from their weekly phone calls. Jules suspected why- she had spent much of her youth serving as a buffer between the two awkward humans alongside her grandmother. She did not intend to keep up this tradition.

Jules had the perfect excuse. Leah and Sam had been taking her to driving lessons offered by Forks High, and she had her final test right in the middle of the proposed trip. Jules had also begun to work on restoring the truck her grandfather Geoff had left her in his will, a beloved '86 F150 short-bed that had deteriorated in the garage at the same pace his body had with his raging arthritis. Jules remembered sitting in the front seat on Charlie's lap trying to peer over the steering wheel at the stock shelves in the garage, pretending she was racing off as a child. She loved the truck, and she was determined to see it back to its glory days by the time she reached her senior year.

And so Charlie reluctantly agreed to let her crash at the Clearwater house on an air mattress in Leah's bedroom for the two weeks he would be away, and Jules felt good about her decision knowing Bella and her Uncle needed proper father-daughter bonding time without interference.

Which led to now, sitting in the back of Sam's Blazer, groaning as she dropped her head back against the glass while her best friend giggled in the passenger seat in front of her. "Could you guys be any more lovey dovey? It's disgusting. No no- it's excruciating. That's the word. Yes. _Excruciating_."

"You won't complain when you fall in love, just you wait." Sam laughed, still letting Leah drum her fingers along his forearm while Jules scrunched up her nose in distaste from where she was stretched out across the entire backseat, braiding a thin lock of her hair.

"What happened to that guy?" Leah glanced over her shoulder, the goofy little smile never leaving her lips. Sam was driving them to Port Angeles to watch Prizoner of Azkaban, the latest Harry Potter movie which both Leah and her had nagged him to take them for weeks. "What was his name? Trevor? Trent?"

"Troy." Jules rolled her eyes. _I wonder if they would notice if a unicorn crossed the street right now, ugh. Dégoûtant._ "He texts using shorthand, this is simply not acceptable. If it is so difficult to text me then call me- if I wanted to crack a code I would join Mission Impossible."

"You're too picky." Sam chuckled, reaching over to fiddle with the radio, making Jules dive forward to smack his hand sharply. Leah bubbled with laughter, used to Jules' golden car rule that she was in charge of the radio. "You're never gonna meet a guy if you don't even give them a chance."

"I do not have to give them a chance." Jules snorted, leaning back again as she shrugged. "For a chance they must first know what to do, non? I will not bother with little boys who do not know where to put their hands or how to speak. If I can woo you better than you can woo me, it is a problem, non?"

"I can't believe you just said 'woo'." Leah snorted, turning to Sam to mouth 'woo' slowly while he snickered.

Jules rolled her eyes. " _L'enfant_."

"At least I _act_ like I'm seventeen, sometimes you remind me of a thirty year old. Like I picture you smoking a cigarette every time you speak waving around a wineglass with your other hand." Leah snarked.

"I think that's borderline racist." Jules squinted her eyes at Leah. "What is romance if not to be romanced? It is the chase, the thrill, the dance before you entrance. You _Americains_ take all the magic out of it."

"Yeah. _This_ is why you're dying alone Jules." Sam shot back at her dryly.

"If I must, I must." Jules sighed overly dramatically, returning to her earlier position as her bones cracked out, settling back against the glass. Her lips twitched up into a mischievous dimpled smirk. "But I intend to have _many_ lovers before the end, _mon ami_."

The two laughed, and Jules felt her reservations fade. She had noticed in recent days, after the summer had begun and Jules had moved temporarily into the Clearwater home, that there had been a shift in their friend group dynamic. Rachel and Rebecca were going to enter their junior year of high school, which meant they would be spending less time socializing as they had forewarned so that they could focus on their studies and on taking care of Jacob and Billy- the latter's diabetes getting worse. This meant Jules had prepared herself for less time with the girls and more time with her best friend Leah, something the two had initially been excited about- until Sam inserted himself into all their grand plans for the summer. Jules hadn't minded at first, she was friends with Sam too after all and she understood that Leah and Sam were a package deal. But as the first days of the summer began, she noticed more and more how the couple often forgot her presence.

Jules hated feeling like a burden.

By the end of the movie, the feeling had returned. Jules didn't particularly care that Leah and Sam spent the first half of the movie making out in the seats next to her, she would never let anything distract her from a movie she enjoyed- and she spent the entire movie with her eyes glued to the screen so much that she forgot the bucket of caramel popcorn in her lap, snacking on it as they left the cinema instead. No, what _really_ got under her skin was how Leah chose Sam's side in their post-movie argument.

"But it doesn't make any sense. Why would a werewolf stand on two legs?" Sam scoffed, arm over Leah's shoulder with their fingers intertwined while Jules hugged her popcorn bucket to her chest, snacking while she argued at his side.

"Because duh? That's how biology works? How would your bones shift and break to the point you turned into a real wolf? Like where does the fur come from? Where does the anatomy shift out from?" Jules frowned. "And you heard Hermione, the term werewolf came from the term 'man-wolf', ergo, part man part wolf. Not just full on wolf."

"That's not how it works." Sam rolled his eyes.

"Well excuse you, when did you become the sole expert in lycanthropy?" Jules snarked back defensively, incensed. Sam had a terrible habit of dismissing her, and Jules was not one to stand for being shut down as if it were not her place to have an opinion.

"It's in our tribe legends, it's a whole thing." Leah defended her boyfriend. "Trust me, he knows what he's talking about."

"Well why does your mythical tribe legend beasts have to match with the mythical _majestical_ beast that is Remus R. Lupin?" Jules retorted, tossing another popcorn into my mouth. "Come on, the man's been through enough. It was _merveilleux."_

"Because it's stupid." Sam snorted. "Werewolves are badass, they're huge horse-sized wolves and they protected our tribe from evil. Super speed, super strength, super healing- those kids would've been dead in seconds."

Jules gasped, as if genuinely attacked. "You did _not_ just call the golden trio _kids_. The _sacrilège_!"

"Jules-"

" _Ferme ta geule! Tu as bête comme ses pieds, aller se faire cuire un œuf te plouc-"_

"Jules!" Leah cut her off, so sharply and so loudly in fact that the man walking by them on the way to Sam's car jumped. "Shut up, Jesus."

Jules frowned. Leah had never looked embarrassed of her before, but she did now- and it made her feel funny inside. She didn't care what most people thought of her no matter what she did, but she _did_ care what the people she loved thought of her. Sam was being unfairly critical of her favourite franchise, _why do I have to be the one to shut up? I'm not the child they're babysitting and taking out to the movies. I'm not disrespecting Sam. He's my friend, I can tell him he's being stupid when he's being stupid, non?_

"What's going on?" Jules confronted them in the privacy of Sam's car, sat in the backseat again but this time in the middle where she could see them both through the rearview mirror. The two shared a look. "No- something's been different from weeks, don't you dare tell me otherwise."

"You wanna tell her?" Sam smiled at his girlfriend, the two intertwining their hands in front of Jules. At once she wrinkled up her nose reflexively. They seemed giddy about something, as if they hadn't just shut her down for discussing a fictional creature mere minutes prior.

Jules, to her credit, merely blinked when Leah dug into her jean pocket and fished out a tiny diamond ring. At first, it didn't register in her brain what it was. Jules was fond of rings, she owned such a vast collection that she merely thought it was one she'd left behind in Leah's bedroom. Then it dawned on her that she only ever wore rings with gold bands, and _this_ was clearly something else.

Then the confusion filled her.

"You just turned seventeen." She forced her tone to be gentle, sobered up from the jewellery she kept staring at in Leah's palm. "I know you're madly in love but-"

"We won't get married 'til Leah turns eighteen." Sam cuts her off, tone firm but the smile remaining on his lips as his tender eyes met with an oddly bashful Leah. "We haven't told our parents yet, we'll wait a while first. But when you know, you know. We want you to be a part of it."

"The wedding?" Jules' eyebrows went up. "Sure. Yeah. I'd be delighted."

Except her tone wasn't, and Jules _knew_ she wasn't. The mere concept of signing your entire life away to one person after knowing them for only a year did not sit well with her. In fact, the entire situation did not sit well with her. _If you have never been with anyone else, how do you know you've found the one? How do you know you have not just settled for the first one?_

"You don't seem excited." Leah furrowed her eyebrows together, clearly looking for acceptance.

"Honestly? I think I'm in shock." Jules frowned back. "Give me a minute. Let me absorb and process, I promise I'll be throwing you a party come the morning."

"No you won't." Leah rolled her eyes with a snort, smiling fondly. "The only party you would throw before noon is a slumber party."

"I feel attacked- but also, yes."


	6. Chapter VI: Rebel Rebel

By the end of her summer, Jules found herself developing a newfound allergy for her best friend and her fiancée. They were fine in small doses, but Jules could no longer bear to spend her every afternoon feeling like the unwanted tagalong on their dates. It was ridiculous, as if their engagement had flipped off a switch inside them. Suddenly, they were no longer two individuals, they were a morphed being- and Jules decided she did not enjoy the company of the overtly happy couple.

She did consider that her feelings stemmed from the announcement of their engagement- something she _still_ struggled to wrap her head around by the time the first week of September rolled around. If Jules heard Sam say _when you know, you know_ one more time she might actually consider committing a heinous crime. The lanky boy with his signature mop of charming silky dark hair would surely be missed, but Jules deemed her best friend would recover eventually.

_When you know, you know- pah! I don't even know what I want for dinner tomorrow._

The shift in her friend group dynamic brought Jules to oddly look forward to her first day of sophomore year. There was something different in the air that morning, a shift in space she could not recognize. Jules was in a good mood- something that _never_ happened in the mornings. Charlie stared at her like she had grown two heads as she arrived fully dressed in the kitchen, humming under her breath as she twirled over to the fridge on her bare feet to pull out the eggs.

"Did you sleep at all?" Charlie squinted in suspicion. She wore a glen check vintage waistcoat over a thin white shirt with thin grey stripes, rolled messily up to above her elbows and mostly tucked into her deeper blue 501s, a wide black ribbon fashioned into a loose necktie knotted over where she had left the top three buttons open on her shirt. Her hair was as loose as ever, silkily whipping about her as she moved, eyes more aware and bright than Charlie had ever seen in the morning.

Jules chuckled, fully aware of why her Uncle would tease her in the morning. "I had a good dream. Omelette?"

"Mhmm." Charlie sipped his coffee. "Looking forward to the first day?"

"Nope." Jules popped, preparing Charlie's usual breakfast order on the weekdays. "Apparently there's going to be new kids. Ella texted me."

"Yeah." Charlie remembered. "Uh, new Doctor in town. Something Cullen. Seems nice. Came down to the station last week to introduce himself as the new Chief Physician."

"Cool." Jules wasn't really interested. She had never much cared for hospitals, and she hadn't had reason to step foot into Forks Community Hospital in a whole year of living here- a proud achievement she intended to continue.

"Mentioned he had five kids going to high school, I think." Charlie seemed to strain to remember what sounded like an unnecessarily dull conversation.

"Damn. He got busy." Jules hummed offhand, beating three eggs harshly in a plastic bowl. "Oooh, are they quintuplets? _That_ would be interesting."

"No. Foster children." Charlie frowned. "The boys and I were a little concerned, kids like that coming from the city."

Jules shrugged. "I'm your foster kid. I'm no trouble."

"You're my niece." Charlie shot her a flat look. Jules raised an eyebrow back. "And you're trouble plenty, don't think I don't know what you get up to camping in the woods with the Quileute kids."

"You let me have a beer with you at least once a week." Jules rolled her eyes. "We're not delinquents Uncle Charlie."

"Just- promise you'll stay out of trouble this year?" Charlie sighed. "I don't want another phone call from the Principal's office."

"I cannot help if Mister Berty and I have differing opinions on King Lear, he should not be teaching if he refuses to allow his students to use their own brains." Jules defended herself dismissively, putting her hands up in mock surrender before pouring the eggs into the pan.Charlie could only chuckle and shake his head. "Besides, I have Mister Mason this year. Apparently, he is much more pleasant."

Jules had been having a good morning. The weather was pleasant enough that the wind felt good on her skin for once instead of bitingly cold, whizzing down the side of the street on her skates as she listened to music from her iPod. She'd picked out a pastel blue double breasted coat she'd collected from a trip to Port Angeles, the soft satin lining feeling luxurious on her forearms as it flew behind her. Jules didn't start to push herself forward with her own legs until she turned onto the parking lot of Forks High, one of her favourite songs coming on.

This would be the first time Edward Cullen laid eyes on her.

_Psycho Killer! Qu'est-ce que c'est? Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better! Run run, run, run, run away! Oh oh oh! Pyscho Killer! Qu'est-ce que c'est? Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better! Run run, run, run, run awaaay! Oh ooooh ooooooh! Aye aye aye aye aye!_

Jules' eyes were lit up with mirth as she twirled around effortlessly, letting herself land on the edge of the bench seat of Ella's old beetle, the door open and ready for her from where her school friend leaned on it. Ella appeared amused at the fluidity of her actions, watching Jules begin to take off her skates with a familiar fondness. "Well?"

"Well what?" Jules tugged off her earphones, the music somewhat audible from where the beat up wires dangled over her shoulders on either side of her neck. It was always a slight effort to undo her bright laces the normal way, but Jules was used to it.

"The New Kids." Ella jerked her chin out towards the other side of the parking lot. Jules raised an eyebrow from her crouched position. "Mom met the Dad yesterday during her volunteer shift at the hospital, said all the nurses are going crazy for the guy. If he looks anything like the kids I don't blame 'em."

"The Cullens." Jules supplies, still not bothering to look over in the direction Ella had gestured at. Now that her earphones were down, she could hear the familiar buzz around her- the same buzz of gossip that had ignited when _she_ had first joined school. "My Uncle met the good Doctor. Apparently the kids are all fosters."

"Huh, they all look kinda alike though. Must be relatives." Ella frowned. "Oh, Stace! What've you got?"

"The hot one's called Edward." Stacy Gilbert wheezed, panting and crouching down to brace herself against her knees near the two girls. Stacy was on the volleyball team- and one of the main reasons why Jules chose _not_ to sit with Ella at lunch or to hang out with her and her friends after school. "Jessica Stanley- you know, Mrs Stanley's kid? She's a freshman. She walked into Mrs Cope's office while they were getting their paperwork. Scary Blonde and the Big Guy are in our grade, the rest are freshman."

"Which hot one? They're all hot." Ella seemed to be peering up over at them, arms still folded under her chest. "It's like they all came off a runway or something."

"Nah, I don't like the look of the big guy-Emmett, I think? Too much muscle, I'd feel like I was getting crushed." Stacy shook her head.

"I dunno, it's rare to find a guy who's taller than you." Ella mused, before freezing and looking down. "Shit! They're looking over here, shit shit shit!"

"Well what did you expect? People can _feel_ when you ogle, you know." Jules snorted, standing upright now that her feet securely adorned a pair of black ankle boots.

"I did not _ogle_." Ella huffed.

"You kinda ogled." Stacy winced, and Jules shot her a look as if to say _there we go,_ tucking her hair behind one ear, balancing her skates by their laces over her shoulder by her fingers. "That's such a weird word. Ogle."

"Weirder than crushing on a freshman?" Jules raised an eyebrow, amused. Stacy flushed furiously.

"You dated Troy last year!" Stacy refuted.

"I dated him for a week." Jules rolled her eyes. "Why are people so fixated on that, hmm? Besides, _he_ was the sophomore. I would never date a younger boy- they would not know what to do and I have no patience to teach them."

"You're so French it almost hurts." Ella groaned. Jules chuckled, patting Ella on the shoulder. "See you in homeroom?"

"See you." Jules waved, already heading off, plugging her earphones back into her ears.

Jules had a habit of walking with such speed and confidence in her stride that oncoming students reflexively parted to give her room. Her dead expression in the mornings used to aid this effect, but now she smiled with amusement at the nervous freshmen chittering about. Her locker was easy to get to- she dumped her roller-skates carelessly at the bottom, pulling off her coat to set it within. She pulled out the schedule she'd collected earlier in the week along with her sophomore year book list, cross-referencing what textbooks she'd need for the first half of the day before she dumped out the rest into her locker to trade out at lunch. She felt the strange sensation of being stared at, but when she glanced up she found nothing but the bustling crowds of first day rush.

Thinking nothing of it, she pushed the narrow metal door shut, taking a sip of coffee from her tumbler as she made her way down to Mister Varner's math class- her new homeroom. The man hadn't arrived yet, but that didn't stop Jules for making a beeline for her old seat at the back of the classroom, right next to the windows. This was where Jules had spent much of her freshman year, daydreaming and staring out longingly at the woods beyond the windows, trying her best to tune out the math equations she would spend most of her free time slaving over.

Jules smiled as the last song shifted on to Oasis' _Champagne Supernova_ , dumping her backpack on top of her desk. She folded her arms over it, resting her chin as she took in a deep breath, looking out longingly at the gorgeous green of the trees beyond the confines of the dull classroom. School hadn't even technically started yet, but she already missed the summer. The mellow song only served to make her even more nostalgic.

The bell rang in that moment, the last of the students straggling behind filing in, Mister Varner amongst them. Jules could hear the buzz of chatter over her music, but she didn't pay attention, not until it all cut off abruptly. It felt like someone had called her name. Her senses alerted her of their arrival mere seconds before they actually did, the hairs at the back of her neck standing as she glanced lazily away from the window to where the two new arrivals. And the breath caught harshly in her throat.

_Sacré bleu._

Jules blinked, as if they were a mirage. The vision standing before her was- frankly, _ridiculous_. The boy looked far too old to be a sophomore, built like a brick house just like Stacy had mentioned. Jules had always considered herself tall, perhaps not as tall as her sort-of-friends from the Volleyball team, but certainly tall enough to feel often equal in height with the boys in school. This boy made her feel _tiny_. He had to have easily surpassed six foot four, but the height seemed a good thing, serving to make the great mass of perfectly bulging muscle set across his broad frame to look oddly proportionate. Like the muscle belonged on him and fit him like a glove.

He was sculpted like a statue of Zeus, skin as pale as porcelain. It made his eerie yellowish gold eyes stand out even more from beneath his dark looming brows, full of childlike mirth. His short dark curls only served to add to this boyish look, taking away perhaps just a tiny chunk of the impressive intimidation of his body alone. He wore clothes that Jules could easily recognize as designer, but the new store-bought kind unlike her vintage and secondhand eclectic pieces. He seemed to be wearing a full outfit straight off a catalogue, a grey cable knit sweater pushed up over his ripped forearms over a blue flannel shirt, snug designer jeans over trunk-like legs.

If the boy was Zeus reborn, the girl next to him was a veritable Aphrodite. Her beauty was such that it almost made Jules' eyes burn, like she needed sunglasses to protect her from the photosensitivity. Her hair was straight out of a L'Oréal commercial, as if it were made of finespun sunlight itself. Jules could've sworn it _glowed_ beneath the terrible, harsh white tube lights of Forks High School. Her face was the kind that would make master artists paint a million masterpieces in her honour, every minute detail as perfect as the next. It was almost _jarring_ how pretty she was. Her eyes matched her hair in exact colour and hue, the same liquid gold, lined with perfect liquid eyeliner to make them pop even more. Her lips were perfectly stained pink, and Jules was grateful that she wasn't smiling- she treasured her eyesight and she was certain it would be blinding if it was anything like the boy's dimpled bright grin.

Her Aphrodite seemed as tall as the boy next to her, but as they began to walk away from the teacher's desk together Jules realized it was because of the brown suede heels she wore, a strange choice in a town like theirs. She wore a white silk camisole with a lace frill tucked into deliciously tight jeans with a gold buckled brown belt, a white loose knit impossibly soft cardigan hanging off her delicate porcelain shoulders. Jules swore she had never seen anything so painfully gorgeous in her life.

And then she realized they were looking right at her. She blinked owlishly, breaking out of her reverie. She raised an eyebrow, realizing that they were speaking- belatedly recognizing that Mister Varner had forced them to introduce themselves just like had forced her the year before. She fought the urge to pull out her earphones to listen, realizing how ridiculous she was being.

_Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide… in a champagne supernova in the sky. Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landsliiide, in a champagne supernova…a champagne supernova in the sky._

Jules hated the way her heart raced, her mind a swirl of colours and golden eyes as she tried to look as unbothered on the outside as she had been before she set eyes on the two newcomers. _If Edward's the hot one then what the hell is Aphrodite?_ _No- stop it. Snap out of it Jules._ She tried to focus on the song in her ears, on the dull ache of her sharp jaw digging into her bony forearm. On the smell of her coffee wafting through the tumbler by her face.

On the blaringly empty seats next to her.

The panic welled up inside of her. _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit_. Like an endless stream, she prayed to whatever god was above her that they would sit _anywhere_ else. Jules didn't know what it was, but something about the two of them unnerved her. She didn't like the way they had looked right _at_ her. She didn't like the way their teeth were too perfect- the way _they_ were too perfect. Something deep in her gut told her everything was wrong, that there was something incorrect in her immediate universe. Like a glitch in her system, she _felt_ wrong, the hairs continuing to prick at the back of her neck. As they walked closer, the goosebumps spread, erupting on the skin of her forearms and down her calves with a chill that made her shiver. Her constant mantra seemed to work, or so Jules liked to believe, the two sitting across the classroom from her, on the same row where the back row remained mostly empty.

Jules gets distracted by motion in her peripheral vision, glancing upward again to see Mister Varner waving at her, the muffled sound of him speaking coming through over the harsh guitar riffs of the song's climax. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he gestured at his ears. _Ah_. Jules lifted her chin up off her arms, tugging her earphones off. Mister Varner sighed in exasperation. "Thank you Miss Rowe- for _gracing_ us with your attention."

"My pleasure sir." Jules could not help herself, the class breaking into snickers while the balding man's smarmy smirk dropped.

"Hand it over, Miss Rowe." He held his hand out, tone firm. She frowned. "Come on. You can collect it after school."

Jules scowled, reluctantly reaching into the back pocket of her jeans to pull out her iPod, taking the time and effort to pause the song and wind the earphones neatly around the handpainted bulky square device. She begrudgingly rose up to her full height, the heels of her boots clacking on the tile as she moved down the aisle up to him, handing the iPod to him as he smirked at her. Jules still scowled as she returned to her seat.

_So much for my good morning._

By the time Jules got to lunch, she felt distinctively as if she were the lead role in a horror movie. She couldn't describe the gut feeling, but it grew and grew until she could no longer ignore the alarm bells as she had chosen to early in the morning. Jules had chosen to ignore the Cullens on the simple principle that _everyone_ was talking about them, non-stop, everywhere she went. Jules felt pity for them, knowing how unnerved she had been a year prior going through the same intense scrutiny. She decided then that she would be the exception, that she would _choose_ to not care.

This, of course, would become an absolute lie. Jules could not ignore the Cullens, just as much as she was certain they could not ignore all the staring they received everywhere they went. It was ten times worse than she had had, and a part of her could not fault the other kids for gawking so openly at them. Each of them were as unnervingly beautiful as the other, each sharing the same golden eyes and the same terrifyingly pale blemish-free skin. The only exception to this rule was the boy with the honeyed curls who seemed to quite clearly be dating the tiny girl with the spiky short dark hair- his eyes were pitch black, terrifying Jules because she had only seen such a dark shade of onyx on the sharks in the _Cinéaqua_ back in the _Jardins du Trocadéro._

These dark eyes seemed constantly upon her whenever she left class, and now, as she sat at her lonely table by the windows, stuck begrudgingly indoors because of the rain. Jules tried to ignore the golden stares, munching on a green apple while she worked on annotating as many poems as she could in her anthology book for her English class with Mister Mason. Every time she glanced up, they were all looking suspiciously in multiple other directions, making her squint.

They were all dressed well, like Emmett and Rosalie- the Zeus and Aphrodite she shared _all_ her classes with thus far. Jules did not know all of their names, but she had heard Edward's name often enough to connect that he was the singular boy with the bronze windswept hair and the lanky boyish build. Jules could understand why most of the female population fawned over him. He was the typical romance novel hero, the broody misunderstood gloomy variety of drop dead gorgeous that made young girls weak in the knees. Jules probably would've felt the same way, had she not been so distracted by the blonde goddess to his left.

The more times Jules felt eyes on her, scorching her skin and setting her aflame and making her freeze every time she looked up and found them looking somewhere else- the more Jules felt like they were a table of beautiful vultures, watching her, waiting for her to make a move. It _alarmed_ her, set her nerves ablaze. She knew it wasn't in her head when Ella joined her, slamming her plastic tray down harshly and effectively blocking the Cullens' view of her. "Okay- why do the weirdos keep staring at you?"

"Yes, thank you!" Jules breathed in relief, her shoulders dropping as she took the last bite of her sandwich, a delicious combination of ham, butter and crunchy sweet gherkins sliced and layered between rustic homemade bread, the closest she could manage to recreate her favourite childhood lunch. "Mm- I do not want to talk about it. Maybe they're just curious about why I sit on my own."

" _I'm_ still curious why you sit on your own. I've literally tried to convince you to sit with us for a whole year." Ella retorted, and Jules shot her a look. Ella rolled her eyes. "Stacy's not that bad."

Jules just keeps staring at her blankly. Ella flushes. "Okay, but she means well. Seriously."

"The one time I sat with all of you I felt like I was sat in an interrogation." Jules grumbled. "Besides, I enjoy my own company. I can get my homework done so I get more free time at home."

"Yeah to hang out with the Quileutes." Ella snorted. "What's the latest on the gang anyway?"

"Leah and Sam got engaged." Jules shot her a look, and Ella's jaw dropped. " _Exactement."_

"Wait- is she…?" Ella's eyebrows furrowed together. Jules took a sip of capri-sonne, shaking her head. "Okay then that makes no sense at all."

"Finally, someone with a brain." Jules' exasperation was clear, making Ella giggle. Jules spied something over Ella's shoulder, making her face fall. "Please tell me you are not spending the whole of your lunch at my table- Stacy's trying to get the others to come over here with her."

"Finnnne." Ella groaned, standing up with her untouched pudding cup, setting it back down on her tray before picking it up. "If they find your body in the woods, I know who did it. Just saying."

Jules can't help but to shoot Ella a dimpled grin as she walked away.


	7. Chapter VII: Every Breath You Take

Mister Varner held Jules back longer than she expected with a droning lecture on respect that had her biting her tongue the entire time. She didn’t have Mister Berty this year and she desperately wished to keep her Uncle from having to make a stop at the principal’s office for once. She knew they wouldn’t keep letting her off the hook for being new this year, but she couldn’t help it.

Unfortunately, staying back as long as she had to let to Jules freezing with her hand on the door that led out to the parking lot. Rain was a common sight in Forks, it had rained earlier in the day and she knew Forks had a habit of interrupted showers- but _this_ was a torrential downpour.

Jules loved storms like the one she was facing. On most days like this, she would be curled up in her bed against the window amongst the warmth of her duvet and her pillows, reading a book or working on a new sketch as she listened to the raindrops thudding harshly against the glass panes. By every account, she should’ve been home by now doing exactly that. Instead she had her skates over her shoulder, blinking owlishly at the unexpected obstacle.

_Merde._

This was not the first time Jules had gotten trapped at school by the rain. She would usually get a ride from Ella and her mother, or more often than not with Leah and Sam. She knew they would be done with school earlier than her, and she knew they would be happy to pick her up- but Jules didn’t want to call them now. She didn’t want to hear about whether they were going to invite this person or that to the wedding, or all the plans they were making for the small house they would fix up together. Jules needed a break.

Jules surveyed her options. The parking lot, from a distance, appeared empty save for the cars she recognized amongst the teachers area. _No chance of that_. A shiny, brand spanking new silver Jeep Wrangler remained in the students area, closest to where Jules was at the doors atop the stairwell that led down there. Jules squinted at it suspiciously. She was a self-proclaimed connoisseur of anything on wheels, she would have noticed a wrangler model that new in town. The wheels were gigantic and heavy duty, definitely intended for extreme off-roading; thus, the kind of person Jules would have adored to befriend. Either she had missed someone at her school who shared the same interests as her and who had been able to afford such a magnificent ride, or- The Cullens.

_Why would they still be in school on their first day? I got out of here as fast as I could._

Dismissing the notion, Jules twirled on her foot, deciding at last to remain at the library until the rain passed instead of risking hypothermia. She knew she would have no issues skating through the rain when she could stop herself from falling, but she also knew she couldn’t exactly keep herself from getting drenched. Questions over the theoretical reach of whether or not she could somehow keep the rain from hitting her drifted through her mind, not for the first time.

The first time Jules became aware of her gift was a memory she did not enjoy reliving, a direct result of her anguish at the passing of her beloved grandmother. She knew how things usually went in the superhero movies and the comic books she’d occasionally pick up and glance through at flea markets, but Jules had never been the kind to desire being extraordinary. She was very aware of her limitations, and she knew she wasn’t saving anybody’s life any time soon. Jules was perfectly content to live out her small town Americana life because at least this way she remained _alive_.

The prickling of goosebumps erupting on her skin alerted her once more to the presence of the newcomers as she entered the library, jostling enough to show as she faltered in her stride. Jules felt her jaw set and her eyebrows furrow as she scolded herself for being ridiculous, trying to ignore the buzz in the pit of her stomach as she made quick work going to the other side of the decidedly small library, ignoring the librarian as she passed his desk.

Jules had never held a fondness in her heart for libraries. The air was too silent, too still- a room where uncomfortable silence was a mandatory requirement. Whenever her assignments required any reading material she would do her best to buy her own copy, or borrow one and evade the premise as quickly as humanly possible. Now, out of the sheer willpower of her own stubbornness, she _chose_ to sit at a table pushed up by a window where she could watch the rain and leave at the first sight of it letting up.

Out of her peripheral vision, she could see the three of them sat at a table on the other side, barely visible through the aisles. The curly haired one and his tiny girlfriend, and the ever-so-glorious teen heartthrob himself- Edward Cullen. Jules knew she was being silly, pulling her homework out so she could at least get rid of that while she waited.

It _felt_ like the prelude in a horror movie. She was all alone here, save for the remaining teachers and the librarian. In her mind she could picture them following her out of the library when it stopped raining, corner her while she tried to skate away and flee. Dump her body in the woods where it would get mauled by wild animals until she was impossible to identify. Jules knew she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t _shake_ the ominous feeling. Jules could feel eyes on her, whipping her head up as fast as she could- but Edward Cullen was busy with his head ducked low writing out notes.

_Why do I feel like they’re waiting for something?_

Jules felt twitchy. She felt like her skin was crawling, like she was about to break into a sweat. She pushed her chair back abruptly, standing up to nearly rip off her blue coat, sweeping it dramatically like a matador’s cape as she set it over the plastic back of the seat next to her. She moved her backpack into the seat, effectively making a barricade between herself and the Cullens, sandwiching herself between her bag and the window like that would give her some strange false sense of security. It did not. Instead, Jules felt eyes on her again, and looked up once more to find nothing. Her anxiety spiked more.

And suddenly, nothing. Jules felt the calmest she had ever felt in her life, as if she were just on the precipice of sleep. Her restlessness had evaded her body with a sharp resounding twang, and it made her freeze. _What. The. Fuck?_ Her confusion did not linger, fading off with the same cotton wool feeling in herbrain, the tips of her fingers and toes buzzing electric. It felt like sedation, it felt so right and so soothing, but it felt foreign. It felt wrong. Abruptly once more she was storming out of the door, her things gathered in a mess in her arms in her rush.

The feeling of being smothered left her the more and more she walked away, her head clearing. Jules’ heart raced. _What the hell was that?_ Her rational mind could not figure out her absurd experience, and she began to wonder if she had hallucinated or if it had been some bizarre mood swing. Jules’ thoughts raced ahead as she pulled her coat back on and untied the skates from where she’d knotted them to her backpack.

 _Come on Leah, pick up pick up pick up._ Her impatience grew as she paced on the tin roof shaded front steps of Forks High. The silver wrangler remained in the parking lot, but Jules didn’t plan to wait for the strange owners. She was thoroughly and effectively wigged out, and she planned to avoid the Cullens no matter how irrational she might actually be behaving. She scowled as she got the busy tone, the first time Leah had ever ignored her call. Jules had _never_ in an entire year heard the tone of Leah’s voicemail.

 _“Hey, it’s Leah. If I’m not answering my phone right now it probably means I’ve got better things to do, sucks to suck. Leave me a message!”_ Jules huffed in indignation at her best friend’s chipper snark. She would’ve spent far more time fixing up her truck over the summer if she thought she would be left stranded at school.

_Fuck it, I’ve had it._

Jules dropped down to sit on the top step unceremoniously, starting to swap her boots for her skates. It took a while, she wasn’t very focused as annoyed as she was in that moment, and she wasn’t going to wait around to hitch a ride with the strange stalker siblings. With her backpack secured over her shoulders, she glanced around, making sure she wasn’t seen before she focused on her favourite trick.

With her palms flat down towards the ground, Jules pushed upward, grinning goofily to herself as she floated just mere centimeters off the concrete steps. Not high enough to look odd, but high enough that she didn’t have to slip on the wheels of her skates down two flights of steps. She kept pushing, kept focusing until she was securely down on the pavement of the car park, in the rain. And then with a twist of her fingers she was propelling herself forward like a motor on the back of a speedboat. The rain felt frigid on her skin, drenching her clothes in a matter of seconds from the hard pelting the opposing force of her motion created. Jules didn’t care about the momentary discomfort, the relief and the rush flooding her veins as she laughed airily, jetting down swiftly around the corner and out of sight.

By the time Jules got home, she resembled a drowned rat, and the squeaky sneezes began the moment she entered the heated warm air within. Charlie wouldn’t be home for a few more hours, plenty of time for her to get rid of the evidence she’d skated home in the rain- the last thing she needed was him worrying about her transport to school and Jules absolutely refused to go to school in the cruiser. Jules wasn’t stupid, she knew she was likely about to get herself sick from her reckless split decision- and she was already racing through all of her options on remedying her mistakes.

When Charlie did finally come home Jules was still in her bedroom, the door wide open so she could hear him enter. She was in bed like she’d longed for, bundled up in an oversized, thick fleece-lined green jumper under one of Charlie’s flannel shirts, her hands wrapped up around her second mug of hot tea while she read her grandmother’s dog-eared copy of _Murder on the Orient Express_. Charlie alerted his presence as he always did with the clang of his keys, appearing moments later in her doorway with wet hair and shoulders and a grimace.

“Hey.” Jules greeted her Uncle, sipping more tea.

“Hey- did you get caught in this? Came outta nowhere.” Charlie gestured at the outside, taking off his gun belt and the rest to hang up on the hooks above his roll out desk.

“A little.” Jules answered vaguely. “You’re later than usual.”

“Yeah, went down to the rez. Apparently the Quileute kids are boycotting the hospital, one of them got into a motorbike accident and refused the EMTs from taking him there.” Charlie seemed angry, and it was only at his surprisingly long response that Jules looked up fully and noticed with a furrow of her eyebrows. “Billy’s behind it. The elders are telling all the kids to steer clear of the Cullens.”

Jules’ heart sunk. “What?”

“It’s bullshit.” Charlie gruffed, the most pissed off Jules had ever seen him. “You know, you’d really think with all the things they have to deal with on the discrimination side of things, they’d be a little more considerate about new folks in town. I mean this kid could’a been real hurt here, and what, you could be dying and you’ll still not go just ‘coz he’s the chief doctor there?”

“And you know what? Doctor Cullen’s a good doctor. We’re lucky to have him. I bet he could’a got a job anywhere but his wife likes small towns so we’re lucky we have him. If I hear anybody’s giving ‘em a hard time I’m not having that. I’m not.” Charlie shook his head, taking his jacket off as he lumbered off, seemingly glad to have gotten his frustrations off his chest.

Jules blinked owlishly at the space her Uncle had thrown a full fit in. _Well then_. She felt a little guilty over her own suspicions about the Cullens, wondering if she’d just let her mind get carried away from her. _It doesn’t make sense, none of it does_.

She still couldn’t shake the feeling she’d narrowly escaped death, but she knew she was being ridiculous- they were _teenagers_.


	8. Chapter VIII: There She Goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Responding to a guest reviewer named HOOT- thanks for your review! It was muchly appreciated and definitely made my morning. Jules’ gift is a more limited version of telekinesis. The limits, we will explore in a later chapter, I’ve already planned it out so please do be patient. She’s not very strong at all actually, the wheels of her skates are easy to move because they’re made for moving, and levitating a few inches is the same as pushing oneself up on a table with your feet off the ground. Unlocking doors is something she’s spent years mastering from within her own bedroom. Like she said, she’s not saving anybody’s life anytime soon.
> 
> Jules’ gift is a manifestation of her own need for self-control in situations, developed from how helpless and ‘not in control’ she has felt her whole life watching every person she has cared about die- and it is also a manifestation of her impulsive nature. Her power is literally her willpower, her force, her impulse- whichever you would care to call it. I like to call it telekinesis.
> 
> As for the Cullens, all will be revealed soon- but Jules’ reaction is, as Edward has described in Midnight Sun (I think- don’t quote me on that), her self preservation and human instincts telling her predators are nearby and predators are watching her. Whether or not they want to get rid of her, whether they know of her gift, whether they have classified her as a threat- this would be a spoiler, and thus I cannot tell you. What I can tell you is that only three Cullens were there to watch her after school- three with gifts.
> 
> Also, in case anyone is wondering, Edward, Alice and Jasper Are Freshmen (So they’re 14-15 which I think is ridiculous, how could Edward ever pass for fourteen?!). Jules was a sixteen year old freshman because they kept her back because she studied in a foreign country. It made sense they would make her start high school from the start so she could ease into it. Jasper and Rosalie are meant to pose as twins however, so I’m electing to make Jasper sixteen and therefore of driving age, but also held back a year so he can be in the same year as Alice. This means Edward would not be able to drive a car yet, technically, and therefore he would not have his Volvo yet- so it makes more sense that Jasper would borrow Emmett’s jeep while Emmett and Rosalie use Rosalie’s car.
> 
> I hope this clears up any confusion thus far! Again, thank you for the likes, the reviews, the follows, the joy. I really appreciate each and every one of you. Anyway, ONWARDS WITH THE STORY!

Forks Community Hospital sat on the other end of town from where Jules lived, a modest but well equipped complex built with ample parking space, right by Forks Bible Church. It was to this hospital that she flat-out refused to go when she woke up the next morning feeling like death warmed over.

She recalled getting sick often when she had been a child, back when she had a fondness for peanut brittle and remained blissfully unaware of her mild peanut allergy. It had always started off with a sore throat, and it always ended with the symptoms of acute bronchitis. After she became aware of her sole kryptonite, and begrudgingly began avoiding it, she had found she hardly got _actually_ sick at all. Her Mamie had always been there for her, armed with _tourin_ and _consommé,_ constantly alternating between the two until she was feeling better again.

Charlie Swan was not her Mamie.

Despite how horrendous she felt, and the fever Charlie insisted she had after forcing a thermometer under her tongue, Jules was adamant it was probably just a twenty four hour bug. She did not protest when Charlie called the school to tell them she was sick and would not be attending for the day, and she didn’t argue as he made her up far too much hot tea in a thermos she kept for camping, leaving her phone by her side for her to call him if she needed him. Jules did little more than roll over and go back to sleep while he left for work.

Her fever, unsurprisingly, was worse by nightfall- and her Uncle drew the line. And so, she leaned her head against the cool windscreen of the cruiser, breathing out of her mouth because of how stuffed her nose was. She felt like a wreck, staring out through glassy eyes at the building looming over them.

“Save yourself the trouble- drive straight to the morgue.” Jules bemoaned, Charlie chuckling at her side. “Evil little man.”

She wasn’t being very effective in her complaining, she couldn’t pronounce half of her letters from how bad her congestion was and her voice was shot. Charlie just kept chuckling, shaking his head and pulling in to park. Jules felt even worse after they got out into the cold air, scowling as she brought a fresh tissue out of the pack stuffed into the pocket of her coat, holding it up to her nose. _How can it be fully blocked and drip like a faucet at the same time? How?_ They didn’t linger outside, and for that she was grateful as her Uncle corralled her into the warm lobby.

Jules, for all it’s unnecessary splendour, continued to try to appear as if she wasn’t sick- even though she was clearly and irrefutably _very_ sick. She held her head high, trying to appear casual while she chucked her used tissue into a bin they passed by, and fished out another one to hold up to her nose just in case. She felt a familiar itch at the back of her throat, and she knew she was about to sneeze and that it was going to make her brain feel like it was going to explode. Hurriedly, she held a finger flat across the tissue up against her nose as if making a Hitler moustache with her pointer- it did the trick, the sneeze abating before it could begin. The horror of the almost-sneeze remained upon her face, the near PTSD of her sneezes earlier in the day where her head had felt like a bomb-blast.

“Chief Swan.” The male nurse at the eerily empty desk in the eerily empty waiting room blinked up at them both as they approached, and if Jules hadn’t felt too horrendous to care, she probably would have found him mildly attractive.

“Hey Kwan.” Charlie nodded his head at the pale, muscled young adult in scrubs. “Brett not in?”

“No, he’s got an ER shift. What can I do you for?” The nurse- Trevor Kwan, judging by his name tag, smiled as his eyes flickered over to Jules while he pulled out a form. _Oh nothing at all Trevor, just here holding a tissue to my face because I like the feel of it._

“I think it’s the flu- she’s got a fever but it’s lower now than before. Keeps spiking though. Sounds like she’s been hacking up a lung all day.” Charlie grimaced. Jules scowled from behind the tissue. _Yes, thank you, hacking up a lung. So attractive._

“Just a cold.” Jules tried to correct him, but Trevor was already frowning with concern. And then the prickling on the back of Jules’ neck began again.

“I’ll take them Trevor.”

The voice behind them made Jules jump, and to her credit, so did Charlie. Charlie’s reaction melted very quickly into a look of relief- the same could not be said for Jules. The man was drop dead gorgeous, pale blonde hair swept over to one side with a warm smile on his pale face- the palest Jules had ever seen. The man looked like he was white as a sheet beneath the white tube lights of the hospital waiting room, the hideous hospital green walls seeming to literally reflect on his skin. But his eyes- his eyes Jules had seen before. At the same time the conclusion came to her mind, Charlie spoke it in relief. “Doctor Cullen.”

“Chief Swan.” Doctor Carlisle Cullen approached them with a duck of his head and that lingering kind smile, accepting the clipboard from Trevor. “And you must be Juliette.”

“Jules.” She corrected him reflexively.

“Freshman Flu’s a common case this time of year, especially if you get caught out in the rain.” Doctor Cullen seemed to be trying to set her at ease, but she felt the exact opposite, squinting a little. _He can’t know I tried to flee his children in the rain for no good reason, right? That’s stupid_. “I think we can fill this out in my office and get you sorted out, shall we?”

“Thank you Doctor Cullen.” Charlie’s shoulders sunk in relief as they began to follow the man. “She’s a little better right now, but she was a wreck an hour ago.”

Jules scowled. “I took a hot shower. The steam helped. Look, Doctor, I just need some meds and I’ll be good to go. I’ll stay at home until I’m not infectious, get plenty of bedrest, drink lots of hot fluids. It's just the sniffles. I know the drill.”

“Nevertheless, I would like to give you a proper diagnosis. Make sure it’s not a viral infection.” Doctor Cullen insisted, pushing a door open and holding it for Jules to enter and for Charlie to scuffle in after her. He shut it behind them, gesturing at a stool next to his desk and at one of two chairs opposite. “Please.”

Jules sat down on the stool, sending her tissue with perfect precision right into the bin in the corner without a second thought. “Good aim.”

Jules only froze for a fraction of a second. He sounded so calm, so gentle and nice- but there was something in his eyes as she met them once more that swam with knowledge. _There’s no way he could notice that was more than just a good throw. No chance. Non. Is paranoia a symptom?_ “Now, let’s start off with the basics, shall we? Full name?”

“Juliette Elizabeth Rowe.” Jules watched as he wrote her last name neatly and swiftly into the form followed by her first name and the initial of her middle, not bothering to ask about her marital status as he wrote ‘single’. He checked off ‘yes’ for if her name was her legal name, and before he could open his mouth to ask, she was already prepared to get this out of the way as quickly as possible. “August the 22nd, 1986. Seventeen.”

“I’m sure Chief Swan can handle the rest.” Doctor Cullen seemed to sense her impatience, smiling kindly once more before offering the clipboard to her Uncle. “Now, when did your symptoms first occur?”

“After I skated home in the rain.”

“Jules!” Charlie looked appalled while Jules winced at his expression. An angry Charlie Swan was not something she experienced often, and it was something she would rather _not_ experience often.

“That sounds terribly dangerous, least of all for your health. You could have lost control and slid into oncoming traffic.” Doctor Cullen lectured her with concern lining his features, Jules squirming with discomfort at the suffocating paternal energy in the room.

“You could’ve called. I could’ve come pick you up.” Charlie eased up thankfully. Jules shrugged. “No more skating in bad weather. Promise?”

Jules rolled her eyes, her middle and index fingers pressed together as she brought them up to her lips and offered it towards him. Unlike usual, when they made a deal or a promise and they would both kiss their fingers and press them against each other- something Jules had done since she was a child- this time Charlie just crinkled up his nose at her fingers as if they caused him offence. It took a second for Jules to remember that she was desperately ill and most likely infectious. “Ah. Yes. Well, air pinky promise I guess.”

Doctor Cullen chuckled, taking some notes. “Now, symptoms?”

“Blocked nose, runny nose, bouts of fever. Irritated cough- I can feel it dripping back down my throat from my nose and _ugh_. Phlegm’s _green_ , I know _green_ is _not_ good. My joints ache and I’ve got chills _and_ sweats. I just want to sleep forever.” Jules listed through quickly, desperately wanting to get back home and crawl into her bed and away from the creepily pretty man smiling unflinchingly at her. “The cough’s progressively getting worse.”

“It _does_ sound like the common flu, but I would still like to run some tests to be thorough.” Doctor Cullen offered.

“Blood test?” Jules wrinkled up her nose, already knowing the drill- hence the reason she had been so adamant in avoiding the hospital.

“Not a fan of needles?” Doctor Cullen looked amused as he pressed a button to call in a nurse.

“Is anyone a fan of sharp pointy things penetrating their skin?” Jules grimaced.

“She’s not real fond of blood either.” Charlie looked equally amused, earning a scowl from Jules as she fished out another tissue to blow out her nose.

Unfortunately, it was in the middle of this exact act that Rosalie Hale knocked and ducked her head through Doctor Cullen’s office, much to Jules’ absolute horror. The blonde appeared apologetic and not at all startled to see the two in there, her father rather _obviously_ in the middle of an appointment. “Hi- uh, I brought dinner. Where should I put it?”

“Just over there’s fine, thanks.” Doctor Cullen smiled once more as his bombshell daughter accepted the invitation and entered the room fully. Jules could only stare like an idiot from behind the tissue she had just blown her nose into, a mixture of mortification and awe as the girl she had done her best to avoid swept like a cloud over to a cabinet in the corner, setting two Tupperware boxes down on top of it. “This is my eldest daughter, Rosalie. Rose, this is Chief Swan and his niece, Jules.”

“Hi.” Charlie offered while Jules waved with her free hand, scrunching up the offending tissue and standing up to take it to the bin in the corner this time. She took the opportunity to turn away from the girl she could _swear_ was glowing in the corner of the hospital room. “Uh- you might wanna steer clear. Not sure if we’re infectious or not.”

“Oh I’m up to date on all my flu shots.” Rosalie assures softly, and Jules could swear her voice was like hearing the flutter of feathers. There was _no way_ someone _sounded_ that good. When Jules turned around, Rosalie Hale’s golden eyes were on _her_ , lips twitched into an almost smile. “I think we’re in the same homeroom.”

 _We literally have all our classes together. Trust me- I noticed._ “Yes, I think so.”

“I’d recommend staying home for the week, I’ll write off a note you can drop at the school for her Chief Swan.” Doctor Cullen took the opportunity to move swiftly on. “If you’d like, Rosalie could pick up your assignments for you?”

“Oh non, it is not-“

“I insist.” Rosalie cuts her off, and Jules feels her jaw clamp shut. There was something about this girl and how much she _yearned_ for her approval that terrified her right to the core. _Why do you affect me so? Snap out of it Jules._ Rosalie smiled, and it knocked the breath out of her lungs and made Jules erupt into a fit of wheezy coughs, literally choking on the air that rushed out. “Leave your number with Carlisle? I should get going, Emmett’s waiting outside for me.”

As if noticing the feeling of overexposure in the air from her mere presence, Rosalie was out the door just as swiftly as she had entered it, Doctor Cullen attempting to distract her and Charlie with her prescription. Jules tried to pay attention, really, but she was too busy etching the perfect image of Rosalie smiling into her memory for all eternity.

Jules had never felt this way before, and it only added to the swell of questions twisting and turning in her mind. She could only wonder what made Rosalie Hale so special.


	9. Chapter IX: Teenage Dirtbag

She had a rough few days of things getting worse before the medication finally seemed to break through. Jules felt like a shipwreck, battered and bruised by a raging ocean. She hardly emerged from her bed unless she absolutely had to, gravitating back endlessly as if she were magnetized to the perfect spot she had burrowed into beneath her duvet and amongst her pillows. She slept most of the time, and Charlie stopped over from work regularly to check on her and make sure she took her medication on time. Leah had stopped by once a day with soup from her mother, much to Jules’ eternal joy because this was the closest comfort she could receive- even if Sue Clearwater’s amazing chicken soup was nowhere near her Mamie’s consommé.

There was a certain air of misery that always seemed to linger when she was not feeling well. Jules did not feel homesick for France, nor the little townhouse she had called a home for most of her life. It was not her grandmother’s cooking she missed, it was _her_. It was one thing to feel homesick for a place, but when your home was a person it felt so very fragile and mortal…and Éloise Bertrand had been her whole _world_. Ever since she had left, Jules felt like her anchor to the earth had been severed, as if she had floated weightlessly without purpose along with the current, content to drift on and ride each wave and the next, making the most of it before her inevitable crash upon the shore.

When she was sick she missed her the most. She missed her loud, unapologetic laugh. She missed the way she used to scoff under her breath every time her granddaughter did something amusing or annoying- Jules swore the two circumstances sounded different, even if it was the same huff of air. When she felt vulnerable she missed her the most. She missed their conversations over afternoon tea, she missed complaining that her grandmother cooked far too much and for far too many people. She missed arguing over religion and politics. She missed _her_.

It was around noon of Friday when Jules woke up to a text from Rosalie Hale. It was not a very remarkable text message, just a heads up that the blonde who caused her heart palpitations would be arriving some time after school to drop off her school work. Jules had felt relieved by the warning and the time she would have to prepare herself, but now that she was in a clearer headspace, she began to wonder more and more exactly _why_ the Cullens seemed to have such an effect on her.

Jules knew she was not the only one to feel there was a strangeness about the Cullens. The whole school had noticed it on the first day- whether they were self-aware enough to recognize their own reactions however, was another issue. Jules had noticed the way everyone seemed content to commentate from a distance- but they did _remain_ at that distance, as if something in their bodies were telling them they were in the presence of danger. The same something that made her hair stand at the back of her neck, and goosebumps erupt all along her skin. Jules felt like she had a built-in radar system that went off every time a Cullen was in her immediate vicinity. She could not comprehend _why_.

There was nothing immediately odd about them. They seemed perfectly polite, well-dressed and well-spoken. Jules had only seen them for one day, but she had noticed that much from them at least. Perhaps this was what was so odd about them, what made her skin crawl. They were _too_ perfect. Like the airbrushed pages of magazines or the irritatingly two-dimensional character tropes on television- something about them felt _fictional._ Jules was not certain if she wanted to find out the new family’s secrets. It was not her business, and she would be content to steer clear and never think about their unusualness again.

And then there was Rosalie Hale.

The words Mister Berty and so many others had so tragically used as a line when they first met her echoed through her ears. _What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet._ Juliette had always begged to differ. If there was one smell in her entire universe that she detested above all others, it was the sickly rotten sweet smell of a rose. And yet, she could not bear to part Rosalie’s name from her surname, because it would never sound as sweet again if it would not conjure up the image of Rosalie _Hale_ and her brief, bright smile.

Why did she care so much for a perfect stranger? Why did she notice so much about her, like the way she had not smiled but once, or how her expressive strange eyes shined with a bitterness Jules had never seen. Why did her heart want to do somersaults at the mere mention of her name? As if the mere sound of it summoned a stampede that stomped to the speed of her spiking pulse. Jules felt like there was something odd afoot, something bizarrely unnatural- she had _never_ felt infatuation so intense in her entire life. And she knew next to _nothing_ about the girl. Unfortunately, this made her want to know so much more.

Jules was painting when the doorbell rang, still singing along to the infectiously good Françoise Hardy record playing from her bedroom as she did a little two step en route to the front door.

“ _Et les yeux dans les yeux. Et la main dans la main. Ils s’en vont amoreux, sans peur de lendemain! Oui mais moi, je vais seule. Par les rues, l’âme en peine. Oui mais moi, je vais seule. Car personne ne m’aime.”_ Jules sang along with a goofy little smile on her face as she made it at last to the door, wiping her paint stained hands on her paint-stained grey rag. Rosalie Hale looked radiant as ever on her porch step, shaking out a red umbrella that had guarded her perfectly styled hair all the way from the shiny, cherry red convertible BMW parked on the curb. Jules tried not to react to the sight of the ridiculously expensive car, the black soft top up to keep away the rain. It was easy to shift her gaze back to the blonde in front of her, absent of her smile once more, simply waiting with a stack of books tucked in her arm and a leather backpack over her shoulder.

“Hello.” She greeted her softly, but her expression turned into one of furrowed confusion as her eyes dropped to Jules’ bare feet, slowly tracing up the rolled up ankles of her faded, wrinkled light brown boiler suit. It had clearly been worn far too many times, the fabric thinned from use, pushed up to her elbows and left unbuttoned enough to reveal a low cut black cami underneath. Blue and yellow paint stained her fingers and splattered her forearms, flecks of infinite colours decorating the boiler suit. It was clear Jules wiped her brushes on her leg from where a matted patch of mixed and overlapped stains blocked out space on the top of her right thigh.

“Hello.” Jules smiled at her, stuffing the rag and her hand into her pocket. “Well don’t just stand there, come on in.”

The goosebumps erupted just as before,but Jules chose to ignore them this time. Rosalie had been kind enough to collect her work all week for her, the least she could do was invite her in away from the rain and offer her a drink to warm her up. The blonde seemed equally curious, looking around the modest two story house she now called her home. There was something in her eyes that left Jules wanting to ask far too many questions, something wistful and heartbreakingly nostalgic. “Here, give me that. I’ll set it to dry outside. You can put your things down by the couch- tea or coffee?”

“Oh, no thank you. I’ll spoil lunch at home.” Rosalie declined politely, crossing over in her heels to the living room.

“Lunch at three?” Jules furrowed her eyebrows, locking the front door habitually from living in the big city.

“Snacking during lunch period keeps us settled in time to have lunch together at home, with our father.” Rosalie answered with a twitch upward of the corners of her lips. Jules tried not to blink at her, rendered speechless again. “Were you painting? I see you’re doing much better than I saw you last.”

“Oh, yes!” Jules blinked out of her stupor, before blushing and smiling ruefully. “And yes, much better- you’ll have to thank your father for me.”

“I will. He’ll be delighted.” Rosalie’s smile grows in amusement as she watches the brunette move back across to a plain white door. “Is this your bedroom?”

“Yes, would you care to see it? Or are you headed home?” Jules challenged her, unsure of how to approach the confident girl in front of her without offending her- or worse, revealing her ludicrous crush.

“Depends on how long you’re willing to let me stay.” Rosalie shoots back, playful- jarring Jules who had not expected it.

“Depends on how long you’re willing to stay.” Jules chuckled, pressing down on the dainty faux-gold handle, swinging her door open to reveal her small bedroom, stepping to the side to allow Rosalie to enter. They were both tall, and so it seemed as though they took up the entire space within- or maybe it was just Rosalie that made it a little harder for Jules to breath. She swung the door shut, revealing a still wet detailed painting set within the frame of the door like a faux window, a gorgeous landscape of mountains and a European village set within trees, a light blue sky in the background and a field with red poppies and bluebells winding toward the forefront. It was very clearly still incomplete as she kept adding colour to the flowers and shading to the trees, the background and the mountains little more than swathes of paint yet to be defined. Françoise Hardy continued to play from the previously hand-painted bookshelf.“ _Et voilà_.”

“Oh my.” Rosalie looked awestruck, and Jules felt her heart swell. She decided _this_ was her favourite expression upon her, the childlike joy clear in the way her eyes shined and her lips remained parted, walking forward toward the door while Jules leaned back against her neatly organized desk to allow her. She was filled with pride, the smugness clear in her crooked dimpled grin, arms folded under her chest. Rosalie reached out as if to touch a mirage, but Jules cut in then.

“I wouldn’t.” Her warning made Rosalie halt with a furrow of eyebrows, eyes remaining glued on the half-complete painting. “It’s still wet. If you smudged it- I’d _probably_ have to kill you.”

“Well I don’t know about that.” Rosalie’s eyes lit up with mirth. “You sound like you’d regret it.”

“Oh _I would_ , imagine getting rid of a blood stain in a Police Chief’s house.” Jules pointed out without missing a beat, and unexpectedly, Rosalie erupted with laughter. Jules didn’t realize she had missed a far better joke than her own, but she grinned like an idiot at the honest-to-god _magical_ sound of Rosalie Hale laughing. _That’s way better than any music I’ve ever heard- oh god Jules you’re such a sappy little shit. Stop it. Stop swooning over the poor thing._

“This room is wonderful.” Rosalie insists, looking around with a small smile as she helped herself to sitting gingerly down on the edge of Juliette’s neatly made bed, complete with fresh sheets. Whenever Jules got bored she resorted in painting something or other- and when her room was as small as this one, there weren’t a lot of options. Her wardrobe was painted to look like burnished copper, tiger lilies erupting over one corner in soft brush strokes, the delicate oranges and yellows and whites adding a brightness to the room. Her bookshelves were a dark and rich green, painted with vines spilling down with tiny flowers, pops of orange and yellow and white once more, only this time with the addition of violet. Her door was her latest canvas, and if things went well, Jules would most likely paint the one that led out onto the back porch as well. 

She moved forward to the record player, turning down the volume as Rosalie took the chance to start a conversation.“Have you always enjoyed painting?”

“Mmm, I would not say that.” Jules hummed as she looked around her room, considering the organized chaos surrounding her. “There was a time I would rather be outside rolling in the mud than stuck indoors painting something.”

Rosalie snorted, the pretty smile staying on her lips as she folded one leg neatly over the other. “I can’t imagine you covered in mud.”

“I should hope not- that sounds quite regrettably vulgar.” Jules points out, but Rosalie does not blush, only raising an eyebrow, unimpressed. “I started painting in school, it became something I would do with my grandmother…painting this room and the next. It used to drive my father wild.”

_Back when the smell of paint was the only thing to get him to clear out of a room he spent days within._

At this, Rosalie’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry- we don’t have to talk about your family. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You didn’t.” Jules smiled softly, pushing herself up until she was sat on the corner of her desk- thankfully the corner not covered in paint. “Am _I_ allowed to pry?”

Rosalie’s expression dropped, eyebrows furrowing together. Jules was quick to speak before she could get any ideas. “Are you related to all of your family? It’s just…you all look incredibly alike for a foster family. I found myself curious.”

“Yes.” Rosalie’s expression remained unnerved. “Um, Carlisle is my Uncle, Jasper and I are related to his wife, Esme, our biological Aunt. Edward, Alice and Emmett are from Carlisle’s side. We came to them at various times. Jasper and I were separated for some of our childhood, he spent time in the south with our mother while I spent time up in New York with our father. I like to tease my brother over his accent.”

This was more information than Jules had asked for, but she nodded, soaking it all in. It all made sense and it all fit perfectly- and yet, something in the back of her mind would not let it go. “I was born here…we moved to Paris after I lost my mother. I was about two years old then. I lost my grandmother when I was thirteen, and my father last year. That’s why I moved back here- Charlie’s all I have left.”

“I’m sorry.” There was more to Rosalie’s words than the simple condolence, some sort of weight Jules could not comprehend as she smiled softly and sadly back at the beautiful blonde on her bed.

“I’m sorry too.” She offered back with care clear in her tone, cut off by an unfamiliar ringtone.

“Sorry, it’s my mother.” Rosalie got up, pointing at the door while she picked up the call. Jules reached out, holding the door open for her. Jules frowned as the sound of rain picked up, the raindrops significantly harsher as they slammed directly against her window.

She didn’t have to wait long before Rosalie returned with a worried expression, her eyebrows furrowed together. Jules knew exactly what had happened. “Let me guess- she doesn’t want you driving in this weather?”

“Yes.” Rosalie frowned deeper.

“So…tea or coffee?”

_Please don’t be a really pretty murderer._


	10. Chapter X: Friday I'm In Love

The rain ran down the window in rushing rivulets next to Rosalie's shoulder from where she sat on Juliette's bed, the dismal light illuminating her porcelain skin. Despite the lack of conversation, the air didn't feel thick with tension or discomfort. Jules felt unusually relaxed as she hummed vacantly along to the soft music playing from her record player, sat straddling her desk chair with her left fore-arm resting over the back, eyes glued to her task as she took great care in exactly how she brought her painted flowers to life.

After Rosalie had dismissed the offer of another warm beverage, Jules had seen to making herself a cup of steaming mint tea, which now sat half-drank on the desk next to her amongst the neatly organized paints and tools as she focused on finishing her door. Rosalie had seen fit to start on her own homework, annotating the next set of poems due for Mister Mason's class in her anthology book. It felt nice not to have to force polite conversation with someone just because the circumstances forced them together- in fact, Jules had the impression Rosalie did not want to be in her presence at all. Jules would feel content to ignore the girl until she could leave, if it were humanly possible for Jules to ignore her at all. It _felt_ strange- as if Jules were lying out in the sun, she could _feel_ the presence of Rosalie Hale radiating towards her, ghosting almost palpable on her skin.

"May I ask you something?" Rosalie's lovely voice made her pause, glancing over her shoulder at the blonde, eyes flickering back to the paint she was mixing. "Why do you skate to school?"

Jules furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't recall seeing Rosalie when she had skated into school- and certainly not when she skated home. Her heart skipped a beat as Jules faced the revelation that she had _noticed_ her. It sat funny in her stomach, knowing Rosalie Hale had potentially laid eyes on her long before Jules even knew she existed.

"Um, it's fun? I used to skate to school in Paris, but it was not terribly out of the norm there. Many of my friends skated with me." Jules shrugged. _I don't think anyone's ever questioned my skates before._

"You don't have a car?" Rosalie's head tilted a little to the side, her poetry anthology book in her lap, against her raised knees, pen hovering over a page.

"I do. Sort of- it's a truck, um, it belonged to my grandfather." Jules furrowed her eyebrows, unable to comprehend why she was struggling to string a fluid sentence as she turned the wheeled desk chair around so she was facing the source of her discombobulation.

"You can't drive?" Rosalie's eyes shone with understanding, her tone reflecting what she thought was the end to the conversation. Jules only shook her head.

"I can- I passed my test this summer." She corrects, and she opens her mouth to continue to explain but the blonde cuts her off.

"So you _choose_ not to?"

"No, no I don't _choose_ to skate- I don't _enjoy_ the risk of hypothermia." Jules rolled her eyes. Rosalie snorts. "The truck's stuck in the garage. It needs a lot of restoration before it'll be in driving condition. I'm hoping it'll be done by my senior year, at least."

"What year and make is it?" Rosalie frowns. "Or was it wrecked?"

"Neglect, mostly. It's been sitting here waiting for me for quite a few years." Jules hummed. "It's an F150 shortbed."

Rosalie's eyes lit up in recognition of the name, surprising Jules only a little as she felt the spark of curiosity light up within her, continuing on. "My Grandfather bought it new in 1986, but he could only drive it for a year I think before his mobility started to intervene. It's sat in one garage or the other ever since. Left it to me when he passed."

"It must mean a great deal to you." Rosalie's eyes were distant, but Jules only smiled fondly in the foggy memories of her Grandpa Geoff.

"It does. I used to be crazy about that thing, in my head it was a monster truck towering over me. In retrospect, I was probably just tiny." Jules chuckled. "It'll be nice to see it back to its former glory one day. Maybe drive it down to the California from here the way he wanted to."

"Can I see it?" Rosalie's response was hard and abrupt, almost a blurted demand, jarring Jules enough to frown at her. The blonde didn't seem to notice. "I'm pretty handy around an engine."

"Oh. Uh, sure." Jules set her paintbrush down, manoeuvring her body off the chair before she pulled the door open for Rosalie. "Yeah um, just through here."

Jules wiped her hands with the rag from before, making sure she wasn't smudging paint anywhere as Rosalie followed her to the entryway where she opened the door to the garage, across from the kitchen. Jules switched on the lights, waiting for the flickering tubes to finally buzz on for good. It was a pretty small space, cramped enough to only really house a few shelves of junk and parts and the washing machine and dryer, the rest of the space taken up by the large beast that was her grandfather's paint-chipped formerly forest green truck. The hood was mostly just rust, she'd managed to restore the chrome-work and a few of multiple dents, but she didn't have a lot of experience with engines. Billy Black had guided her through most of what she had managed to fix thus far. "Wow. You weren't kidding."

"It just needs some love." Jules chuckled, watching as Rosalie helped herself, popping the hood. Within it was a mess of cables that had been ruined by squirrels that had at one point made themselves residents within the truck, and the shambles of an engine that had certainly seen better days. "Poor thing has been lonely too long, hmm? Sometimes all it takes is someone to believe in what you _can_ be to bring out your best self. Breathe the life back into your lungs."

Rosalie glanced back at the way Jules smiled warmly at the truck, skinny arms folded under her chest. She could not read the blonde's expression from where she leaned over the engine, but there was an age-old melancholy in her eyes that Jules could not bear to unravel. _What a strange little mystery you are, ma chérie. "_ You enjoy restoring things."

"I do." Jules nods, leaning back against the doorway, crossing one foot over the other. She wrinkles her nose up, shrugging. "Well, I am not certain if _restoration_ is the correct term."

Rosalie only continued to look at her, the patience as she listened something Jules was not used to amongst her peers, and something she had not realized she had craved with her crumbling relationship with her friends in La Push, so busy with their own lives as they were. There was something unusual about the near-stranger in her garage and the way she soothed her very bones. "There's something about old things that has always left me spellbound. There's such a rich story behind every piece, such history and beauty and pride behind the craftsmanship. I like to give them a second chance at life where others would deem their lifetime complete."

"Plus, I get bored easily." Jules adds on charmingly with a cheeky grin, making Rosalie finally break and chuckle. "I must admit, I did not expect you to be interested in mechanics."

"I want to become a car designer." Rosalie turned her attention back to the engine in front of her, trying to hide the way her lips twitched upward- an impossible feat considering how hyper-aware Jules seemed to be about her every action. "I feel like I've spent years and years inside a garage."

"I'll admit, I'm more interested in the superficial than the mechanics. I'm not very good at that part." Jules chuckled. "It's why I expect I'll take so long to fix up the engine. My Uncle's friends have been guiding me through it, but they're unable to stop by often enough to make steady progress."

"I could help if you'd like." Rosalie offered, eyes lighting up. Jules froze, not expecting to hear genuine _excitement_ in her voice. Or at least, the closest thing to excitement she had seen on the frustratingly aloof goddess in her garage.

"I would appreciate that, but I would not wish to-"

"I insist." Rosalie cut her off with the same icy cool tone she had used in the hospital, leaving no room for argument as Jules' mouth clamped shut. She squinted at the blonde, but Rosalie did not flinch. "In fact, I insist on driving you home from school from now on. The last thing I need is you catching pneumonia and Carlisle having to deal with it."

"Thanks. I really appreciate how much you care for my wellbeing." Jules snarked sarcastically.

Rosalie’s lips twitched upward in a triumphant smirk. And then she seemed distracted, eyes growing distant. Jules frowned, about to ask if she was alright, before she heard the sound of Charlie’s keys in the front door directly behind her.

“Jules? You o- Jesus!” Charlie jumped after realizing that his niece was directly next to him and not crashed on her bed like she had been earlier in the week. “Make a sound, would ya?”

“You did not give me the opportunity.” Jules rolled her eyes with amusement over her shoulder, turning back to Rosalie who had a strange look on her face. “Uncle Charlie, you remember Rosalie Hale.”

“Just Rosalie.” The blonde shoots her a brief sharp glare, to which Jules only raised an eyebrow lazily with a dimpled grin. “The storm sounds like it’s let up, I should probably get going before it gets bad again.”

“You probably should, this is the kind that lasts ’til morning.” Charlie nodded grimly, immediately concerned for the wellbeing of the teenage guest in his house. “Uh, you need an escort with the cruiser?”

“No sir, I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m a safe driver.” Rosalie’s smile seems to make the ever-broody Charlie Swan blink in stupor, Jules’ heart twitching with oddly misplaced over-protectiveness as she pushes herself off the doorway, nodding over her shoulder.

“Come on. I will help you pack up your things.” She gives Rosalie an escape from her Uncle, patting him on his rain-drenched shoulder as she passed him. “Get into the shower old man, leave your clothes out. You smell like wet dog.”

“Been a long day.” Charlie groaned, trudging up the stairs in his wet boots. “I’ll mop that up later!”

“No you won’t!” Jules shouts back after him. Once more, Rosalie seems distant, and Jules cannot comprehend the sudden change in demeanour as she leads the blonde back to her bedroom. “Sorry about that. You sure you don’t want to wait? Perhaps the rain will stop all-together.”

“You heard the Chief, it’ll probably last all night. He’s been here longer than the both of us.” Rosalie points out sagely as she collects up her anthology book and highlighters while Jules picks up her backpack for her. When her things are packed up, they both walk back towards the front door, halting and hovering, lingering in the doorway where Jules continued to hold the knob. _Was this truly as abrupt a goodbye as it feels, or do I just want her to stay forever? What is wrong with me?_

Rosalie isn’t the kind to be kind without reason, something Jules suspects as the curiously unreadable blonde’s lips twitch upward into another soft almost-smirk. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Yep.” Jules nods.

“Don’t spend your whole weekend painting, you have homework. Lots of it.” Rosalie scolds her pre-emptively, making Jules roll her eyes with a light huff of indignation. The blonde’s eyes swim with mirth. “If it rains in the morning I’ll come pick you up for school.”

“You don’t-“

“I insist.”


	11. Chapter XI: Where Is My Mind

When Jules woke the next day at noon, she lay staring at her blank ceiling, wondering if the day before had been a fever dream. Every moment replayed in her memory, every trace of Rosalie Hale imprinting itself upon her mind. Nothing had really happened out of the ordinary, and yet, the mere idea of spending more time with the strange beauty had her heart fluttering. Her emotions only served to confuse her further.

By the time Jules had her coffee and made lunch for herself and her Uncle, she had decided she was not going to think about Rosalie or any of the Cullens until Monday. This, of course, meant they were _all_ she could think about. It was as if she had begun by staring at a dark pool, her instincts warning her of the unknown swimming beneath the depths, warning her to steer clear…and yet somehow she was now drowning in those same very depths. There was an odd peace that came with what felt like a reluctant surrender. Despite her every attempt, the glimpses of memories tugged her down deeper at every chance, until she had surrounded herself with nothing more than the very _idea_ of Rosalie Hale.

It was these same depths she found herself lost in as the sun ticked by on its slow journey behind the dismal, gloomstruck cloud bank that loomed over Forks. Charlie was busy with a case, which served well as the comfortable silence blanketed over their simple lunch. He came and he went, as he often did on weekends, and soon Jules was left to her own devices. She attempted at starting on the pile of schoolwork Rosalie had brought for her, but she ended up working on her door mural more, humming along to the same songs from the day before in a strange motion of retracing her steps, playing back and overthinking every second of their interaction. In the afternoon, Leah announced her forthcoming kidnapping attempt on her best friend with a simple text; _pick you up in ten._

This was how she found herself sat on the passenger side of Sue Clearwater’s chipped blue Chevy Sprint exactly ten minutes later. She could not hear Leah’s voice, it sounded muffled and distant, her conscious mind still submerged in the waves of never-ending questions she had pushed down until the day before. Her eyes, distant, stared out at the wet, moss-coated pine trees that flew by her open windscreen, and her lungs filled with the thick, moisture-heavy cold air that breezed through her honey brown hair- yet, all Jules could _see_ was a vision of a statuesque blonde, and all she could _smell_ was the lingering memory of her sweet perfume.

“Are you even listening to me right now? Jesus Jules!” Leah smacking her arm jolted Jules out of her reverie, a scowl descending upon her features as she rubbed over her stolen flannel sleeve. “What’s up with you today? I’ve literally never heard you being so quiet in my life.”

“You’ve only known me a year Lee.” Jules reminded her with a roll of her eyes at Leah’s dramatic nature. “Besides, I _was_ listening- you were talking about Sam, non?”

“You just guessed that.” Leah glanced at her to squint, and Jules flushed, sheepish as she tugged the buttoned open flannel shirt up higher over her vintage t-shirt, hugging around herself to stay warm. She didn’t even remember getting dressed to go out. “I’m literally going through a crisis here, come on. I _need_ you.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m here. I’m here.” Jules sighed, slapping her own cheeks lightly as if to wake herself up and out of her Cullen-fogged brain. She turned in her seat, the seatbelt moving with her as she faced Leah better, her back against the locked door. It was only now that Jules could see that Leah looked genuinely upset, her eyebrows furrowing as her face falls, her heart sinking to her stomach.“What did he do?”

“He asked my Dad for his blessing.” Leah huffed, knuckles turning white over the steering wheel, glaring eyes fixated on the road ahead. “Like what the fuck was he expecting? _Obviously_ Dad was gonna lose his shit. He looked like he was ready to pop when I got home from the store, like literally, it was a whole thing. He had Billy there and he’d brought my mom home from work and they made Seth go outside to play. It was like a full-on intervention.”

Jules knew Leah was mad, but she couldn’t help the relief flooding her system. “So you’re not getting married?”

“Oh no, no we’re still getting married.” Leah frowned, tone coming down a notch as she glanced at her best friend. “It took a lot of yelling and I had to pull the ‘I’ll run away with him’ card as a threat,but Dad insists we wait until we graduate from high school first.”

“I mean that’s not so bad, right?” Jules tried to placate her, but Leah only scowled. “Think about it this way, that gives you enough time to save up for a proper wedding, you’d have your whole family there in full support. You’re already a junior so it’s not like it’s that far off. And you guys can start saving up for _after_ the wedding too, fix up Sam’s cabin better, make the foundations for a proper future together. You know what I mean?”

“I didn’t pick you up so you could be the logical one. You’re supposed to be on my side, Rowe.” Leah grumbled, and Jules put her hands up in mock surrender with an amused dimpled grin. “It just sucks, you know? Like why would Sam go behind my back and do that? He should’ve talked to me about it first. Like I _knew_ my parents would flip their shit when they found out, which was why we agreed we were going to tell them _after_.”

“Sam was just trying to do the right thing by you, non? You can’t fault him for that.” Jules reached out to playfully poke Leah in the cheek, only making the grumpy girl sulk even more. “Come on, ease up on the poor boy, hmm? He just wanted you to have your family there, he knows how much they mean to you even when you pretend to hate them.”

“I don’t pretend-“

Jules cut her off with a look, Leah’s mouth clamping shut. She sighed. “Lee, Sam doesn’t reallyhave any family left to go back to, to have there with him on a day as important as this. He doesn’t want you to have to give that up too when you have a choice. Don’t take it out on him, everything he does he does because of how much he’s absolutely enamoured with you.”

“I hate when you’re right.” Leah sighed, and Jules grinned again in triumph. “Shut up.”

“I said nothing you did not already believe.” Jules chuckled. “Are you going to forgive him?”

“Later.” Leah reached up to adjust the rearview mirror, shooting Jules a brief soft smile. “I feel like we never get to hang out just the two of us anymore, right? I mean I nearly lost my best friend this week, you could’ve died. The least I can do is treat you to shakes and fries at The Edge.”

“It was just a cold, _mon dieu_ you are such a dramatic little shit.” Jules rolled her eyes with a huff as Leah pealed with laughter. Inwardly, Jules felt overjoyed that she could spend time with Leah without her fiancée attached to her hip. She tried desperately not to let it show, aiming her little smile out the open window and away from her best friend instead.

“Okay so what’s going on with you?” Leah finally asked as they sat in a booth overlooking the Quileute Marina- the same booth Leah had sat in since she was a child. The River’s Edge Restaurant, the most popular spot to grab a bite in all of La Push, was ironically nowhere near the Quillayute River and Jules had tried repeatedly in her past visits to ask why it bore the name that it did.

“Nothing.” Jules shrugged, the guilt briefly spiking in her for her far too quick lie. _Everything_. “Same old, same old. I got so bored of being trapped home I started painting my-“

“Cut the crap.” Leah cut her off with a level look, and Jules clamped her jaw shut, flushing. Her best friend squinted at her, cocking her head to the side as she seemed to search for something. Jules felt the hairs prickle along the back of her neck as she shuffled in discomfort, picking up another french fry to dip into her side plate of ketchup. “Oh my god- you have a new target.”

“No I don’t.” Jules snorted softly.

“Yes, you totally do! Spill!” Leah’s eyes lit up, sucking more chocolate milkshake through a red and blue striped bendy straw. “Come on, you literally listened to me rant about Sam the whole ride. I wanna hear the juice.”

“There is no juice.” Jules defended. “There’s just new kids at school, you know, the Cullens?”

“Oh yeah.” Leah frowned. “The Elders threw a whole tribe meeting on it, told us to steer clear. Something about ancestral bad blood, Sam and I didn’t really pay attention. We were a little more preoccupied. Anyway, not the point- some people really buy into that stuff, you know? Like if Old Quil tells you to back off you _know_ you should back off. Like, you know my cousin, Colby Fuller? He got into a motorbike accident being a dipshit with his friends and my mom went total apeshit because he should’ve gone to Forks Community but he insisted on showing up at our place instead, and she had to fix him up all on her own. Like I had to scrub blood off the dining table for ages, it was disgusting. Ugh.”

“Yeah, Charlie and Billy are fighting about it. It’s kinda stupid.” Jules chuckled.

“It’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.” Leah agreed with a snort. “So you like one ofthem? What does he look like? What’s his name? Is he in your class? How’d you meet? Did he ask you out yet?”

“They’re all exceptionally attractive.” Jules hummed thoughtfully, being vague on purpose. Leah seemed ready to pounce on her if she didn’t give any details soon, but Jules only shrugged. “It’s not like that. I have already told you how I feel about dating people my own age, they don’t know how to romance a girl, it is pointless. Absolutely pointless.”

Jules waved it off dismissively, chewing on another french fry while Leah frowned in confusion at her. “Then what is it?”

“I do not know. Something is a bit… _off_? I cannot explain it, there is just something about them makes me feel strange. Like they are hiding something. I don’t know, maybe I am just paranoid.” Jules shrugged with a frown, pulling her full bottom lip in behind her teeth as she hesitated before speaking more on the topic. “Two of them are in my grade, and the girl, she came over to my house yesterday after offering to collect the work I missed at school. There’s- she talks _so_ differently.”

“You’re foreign.” Leah waves off. “Everyone talks different to you.”

“Non, it was not that. It was…it was like listening to Greta Garbo or…or Rita Hayworth. Like it was a completely different dialect.” Jules frowned, ears ringing with Rosalie’s voice once more.

“Who?”

Jules rolled her eyes. “How do I know more about American culture than you do?”

“‘Coz you’re a freak.” Leah doesn’t miss a beat, stuffing herself with more french fries. “So what? People talk different all the time. You don’t sound too French, but you don’t sound not-French either. That’s a different dialect.”

“That _is_ true.” Jules hummed, resting her chin on her fist as she fiddled with the straw in her vanilla milkshake, twirling it round and round her spindly finger. “Mmm. _J_ _e ne sais pas._ There is just something _odd_ about that family.”

_There’s something odd about the wayshe makes me feel so much._

“Well you don’t have to hang out with them.” Leah pointed out. Jules ate another french fry, and Leah squinted at her. “You’re hanging out with them.”

“Mmm non, just Rosalie.” Jules corrects her. “She’s helping me fix the truck.”

“Her name’s Rosalie?” Leah chortles. Jules frowns at her. “Come on, that’s a total grandma name. Poor chick. Wonder what her mom was thinking, giving her a name like that.”

“I think it’s a wonderful name.” Jules shakes her head slightly. “It suits her well.”

“Well tell her thanks once she fixes up that old wreck, maybe I can finally stop being your personal chauffeur.” Leah fires back with a cheeky smirk.

Jules shot her a glowering look, fighting a smile despite herself. “You don’t even have your own car.”

“Why would I need my own car? That’s the whole point of a fiancée, _I_ get a personal chauffeur.”


	12. Chapter XII: Fade Into You

She spent her Sunday counting down the ticks of her clock like a fool. Jules could feel it, feel that she was teetering on the precipice of some great big cataclysmic event in her life, the adrenaline of anticipation pumping in her veins. She did not wish to admit it, but she could feel the way it had began to cloud her judgement.

She hadn’t got much of her work done. She’d had a hard time sleeping since Friday, tossing and turning, the deep lull of dreams eluding her overactive mind. She could’ve sworn she had jumped bolt upright on a few occasions with goosebumps erupting all over her skin- but there was never anything lurking in the shadows beyond her vision, never any glowing eyes staring at her through the curtains like she envisioned in her nightmares. This was why she had slept until noon on Saturday, and why she had repeated the same routine on Sunday.

Had it not been for her alarm waking her up quite rudely on Monday morning with the blaring snares of _Eye of the Tiger_ , Jules probably would’ve slept in once more. Instead she glared slits at her ceiling as the loud song continued to bang on somewhere behind her head from the radio clock. _Fuck off._

Jules was lucky her alarm clock flew out of the shelf and got yanked back by it’s own cable- Charlie would not have appreciated her smashing something he had scavenged just for her. Her hand drops from where she had aimed it in the general direction of the clock, the image of it flying out of it’s shelf fading in her mind as a familiar face replaced it instead, the abrupt end to the song bringing her attention to the sound of rain slamming harshly against her window.

_Rosalie would be coming as promised, then._

It wasn’t a difficult prediction to make, rain in Forks, but something about the way things fell so perfectly into place unnerved her. Not for the first time, Jules felt as if there was something she was missing, just out of reach from her understanding. Pieces in a puzzle she could not make out the final picture of.

An hour later, exactly as she had promised in her warning text, Jules found a now familiar red BMW parked out on the curb, using an umbrella to get to it as quickly as she was able as the rain sloshed down hard. The weather was the kind she loved to sleep to, the promise of rolling thunder in the far distance an assurance that this was going to last quite some time. The perfect weather to lie in bed and never emerge. Instead, she rushed to get into the passenger seat of the car as swiftly as possible, trying in vain to keep the rain out and keep from getting the expensive Napa leather seats wet.

Rosalie looked lovely as ever, a strange look of relief on her face as Jules struggled to shrink down the telescopic handle of her compact black umbrella. It was as if she had been worried that some strange tragic fate might have befallen her on her journey from her front door to the car. “Good morning to you too.”

“Why does everyone always greet me like that?” Jules was trying to be cordial, but the lack of sleep had brought forth her usual morning demeanour, a scowl set on her pretty features as she set the umbrella on the floor of the car, between her boots. Rosalie chuckled, shifting her car into drive and pulling off from the curb as Jules sighed and leaned back in relief, sipping her coffee with one hand while bringing the seatbelt around her with the other. “Good weekend?”

“It was…enlightening.” Rosalie takes a moment to settle on the right word. Jules raised an eyebrow at her over her steaming coffee. “How about you? Get any work done?”

“Do you actually care?”

“Yes.” Rosalie’s eyebrows knot together, and Jules feels the guilt ebb away at her.

 _Shit_. “I’m sorry- I’m not a morning person.”

“I gathered as much.” Rosalie’s tone is flat, but the amusement is back in her eyes. Jules grumbles under her breath, but she swears she can see Rosalie’s lips twitch upward. “I have a question.”

“You’re an exceptionally curious creature, aren’t you?” Jules regards her, recalling how oddly intrusive and commanding the blonde had been the last time they had spoke. Rosalie’s lips twitch upward again this time, only into a wicked smirk that Jules is grateful she can only see half of because it’s enough to knock the breath out of her lungs.

“Why don’t you let your friends drive you to school?” Rosalie directs at her.

“My friends don’t go to my school.” Jules answers, used to this topic from her arguments with Ella who had offered for her to carpool with her and her friends repeatedly after this summer, when she had finally gotten her car and license.

“The tall girl from the volleyball team?” Rosalie frowned.

Jules squints at her. “You’ve been watching me?”

“You sat alone in the cafeteria. I was curious.” She shuts down quickly, and Jules hates how prepared the blonde always seemed to be, armed and ready in their every conversation. She could never throw her off.

“Her name is Ella, her mother is the school nurse.” Jules supplies, in case Rosalie might ever end up there. Inevitably, everyone in school did at least once. If nothing else then because of the cafeteria food. Jules turns with a sigh, eyes on the way the car’s speed made the rain fly by like stars in lightspeed in a Star Wars movie. “If I accepted a ride with her I would also have to ride with Stacy- avoid Stacy at all costs.”

“Yes ma’am.” Rosalie’s soft voice was filled with amusement at her dry warning. “So…you’re not friends with Ella?”

Jules shrugs, letting out a soft non-committal noise as she took another sip of coffee before reluctantly putting the cup down, knowing she would need to save it for her first few periods. “You don’t enjoy spending time with her.”

“She’s kind.” Jules argues. “We share the same humour perhaps, kindred spirits, but we do not share the same interests. She has her friends, I have mine. _Mais alors,_ we do pair up on group projects when we get the opportunity, I suppose." 

“School friends.” Rosalie deduces, and Jules nods. “Your real friends?”

“They live on the Quileute Reservation.”

Rosalie’s jaw clenches, her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. Jules is too busy staring out the window wistfully to notice. “I don’t spend as much time with them as I used to. I think we’ve begun to drift apart.”

“You’re lonely.” Rosalie’s tone finally draws her back into the car, into the present, realizing she had just bared her soul as easily as discussing the weather to a near perfect stranger. Rosalie’s eyes were glued to the road ahead of her, but Jules could see the heartbreak swimming within them. _How strange_.

“I must be.” Jules muses with a hum, having considered it before. “To overshare with a stranger on the way to school- that’s pretty pathetic even by my standards. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Rosalie shakes her head. “I…I find myself… _curious_ , about you.”

Jules frowns, opening her mouth to question that revelation, but Rosalie is quick to cut her off.

“Besides, we’re not real strangers, are we? I like to think we’re friends.” Her smile is dazzling, enough so that Jules is momentarily distracted, staring like a deer caught in headlights.

“I don’t think we should be friends.”

And there it was. The decision had flitted in and out of her thoughts repeatedly over the weekend, over the implication of Rosalie Hale spending time regularly in her house, in her near proximity. There were a great multitude of reasons why Jules thought it was a bad idea, and each one had solidified her decision in her mind. The first was her inhuman attraction to the girl- she could not wrap her head around her feelings, could not comprehend the depth to them, the very intoxication of her mere presence that had left her so befuddled for twenty four hours afterwards. Jules had never felt emotions so strong about a stranger, and something deep in her gut told her that these feelings were _off_. That there was something else at play here, something she was not yet privy to.

On the other hand, she could not bear the thought of being around the subject of her affections for extended periods of time and being _mere_ friends. The two sides to her attraction warred wildly against each other, fighting for a course of action that she did not under any circumstances want to take. The blonde was a goddess, but a great percentage of her logical mind was certain she was straighter than a Roman road. She would not dare impose her own feelings on someone who could not reciprocate. It was not Rosalie’s fault, and she would not subject her to the doomed end result should they continue to interact.

The second reason to her desire to cut ties with the blonde was more her head than her heart. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something _off_ about the Cullens, and by now she was certain she did not wish to unearth any secrets they held. It was not in her nature to chase danger when she could so clearly sense it. Her self-preservation had always been one of her strong suits, and if it made her a coward, then so be it.

“Have I offended you?” Rosalie sounded hurt, and Jules feels the bitter twist of a knife in her heart at the knowledge that _she_ had caused that hurt.

“No…I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” Jules tries to make her understand, but her usual clever words fail her now. “I think you should drop me off at school today and we should go our separate ways.”

“I wouldn’t enjoy that.” Rosalie argues, tone still unbearably soft. _Gods, why do you sound so soothing?_ “Do I not get a say in whether or not I get to be your friend?”

“You’re more than welcome to.” Jules chuckles bitterly. _Do you have to make this so hard?_ “I just don’t recommend it. Trust me. I’m not worth it.”

“On the contrary, I find you to be the only technicolour teenager in all of Pleasantville.”

She hates that. She hates that Rosalie Hale is cultured enough to reference a movie most kids their age didn’t even know existed. Hated that she was able to capture her own feelings for the people of Forks in a mere sentence so perfectly. Hated that she could seemingly see inside her very soul and read the pages within as if they were a book she had read a thousand times. _Why do you have to be so perfect? Fuck you._

Rosalie mistook her silence for confusion. “It’s a movie about-“

“I know.” Jules answers, soft. Rosalie smirks smugly, turning back to the road as she turned the corner into the parking lot. She could hear the resignation in Jules’ tone, the surrender in her voice. “Are you sitting with me in class today?”

“Do you want me to?” Rosalie asks. Jules shrugs, reaching down to prepare her umbrella. “Emmett and I could use a buffer. We spend too much time together as it is.”

 _Oh_. “Right. You’re together.”

Ella had texted her all the gossip over the weekend, filling her in on all she had missed in the week she lost to the flu. Rosalie’s bright peal of laughter surprises her, raising an eyebrow at the blonde.

“What, me and Emmett? Don’t be silly doll, he’s my brother.” Rosalie pulls up into the parking spot next to the silver wrangler, graciously unoccupied at the moment. In fact, no one was lingering the parking lot as students often did, the weather would not allow for it. Jules knew the corridors were going to be busier than ever that morning, and she prepared herself mentally for the warpath she would have to carve out to get to her locker in time. A part of her tingled still, oddly relieved in the confirmation that Rosalie was not with the gorgeous, large behemoth of a boy, but even more so flustered that she had slipped and called her _doll_. “What about you? Any boys tickle your fancy?”

This sounded like a weighted question. There was an odd airy quality to Rosalie’s tone, as if she were putting on a show where she hadn’t before. Jules squinted at it, waiting for the blonde to reach into her console, fishing out a neatly put away compact umbrella of her own- cherry red, just like her car.

“Not lately.” Jules decides to be vague. She feels the need to reassure the blonde as they open the doors together, popping open their umbrellas and stepping out swiftly to save the seats once more. “I’ve decided not to date until university.”

Rosalie’s mood seems to drop at once, and Jules catches the shift, curious once more as she crosses around the car to join the blonde, her backpack still over her shoulders, her coffee tumbler still in her free hand. Their umbrellas bump into each other as they fall into step together, but Rosalie adjusts hers to be lower than Jules’. “Why wait?”

“Boys my age are unbearably disappointing.” Jules glowers, taking a sip of coffee as the rain spatters against her shoes. “Why waste my time?”

“An authentic high school experience involves a boyfriend, doesn’t it? A prom date, someone to carry your books to class. Someone to drive you home.” Rosalie offers.

“I don’t need a boy to make me feel complete.” Jules rolls her eyes, dismissing the mere notion. Her lips twitch upward ruefully. “Besides, I seem to have met a very _persistent_ blonde who insists on driving me everywhere. So that's sorted.”

Rosalie smirks, a soft huff of air escaping her lips as they walk up the concrete steps, putting away their umbrellas from the shade of the tin roof cover. “You forgot to add _gorgeous_ to that list of adjectives.”

Jules can’t help but laugh.


	13. Chapter XIII: Blue Monday

The staring was back as the two girls stepped into the overpopulated corridor, the sound of Jules’ laughter fading off into the buzz of loud chatter that invaded their senses. Jules couldn’t help but roll her eyes after turning away from Rosalie, shifting her backpack around to her front so she could slip her umbrella into the water bottle pocket. “See you in homeroom?”

“I could walk you to your locker if you’d like.” Rosalie was looming over her as they walked together, hovering.

“I’m not running away.” Jules rolls her eyes again, ignoring the multiple gazes she feels on her skin. “You seem pretty adamant on your stupid decision to volunteer your precious free time on a busted truck. If that’s the hill you wish to die on, fine. Who am I to stop you?”

“You’re vexed.” Rosalie’s amused, having her way as she seemed to always manage to as they walked together through the parting crowds to Jules’ locker right by their homeroom.

“You’re vexing.” Jules shoots back.

“No, it’s more than that. You don’t enjoy not being in control of the situation, do you? That’s why you wanted to get rid of me. You don’t enjoy someone else being in charge.” Rosalie hits a nerve, Jules’ jaw twitching at being psychoanalyzed. The blonde seems proud of herself for unearthing a secret. “Touchy, touchy.”

“Bite me.” Jules growls at her playful taunts.

Rosalie laughs, but there’s a bitter edge to it. “Oh sweetheart, that’s the _last_ thing you’d want.”

Jules grumbles, twisting at the combination before pulling her locker open, setting her coat inside it first. She’d dressed simpler than usual that morning, a pale pastel blue button down shirt rolled up to her elbows and tucked into the hem of her high waisted 501s, showing off her figure for Rosalie- not that she would ever admit to it. If she hadn’t been in school she would’ve painted her lips red, but this might have been too obvious. The blonde at her side was clearly interested in fashion, and she oddly craved her approval. She _hated_ that she craved her approval.“Are you ever going to leave me alone?”

“We have all our classes together.”

“So you _did_ notice.” It’s a small triumph, but Jules celebrates it nonetheless as she fixes her hair in the little mirror she had taped to the inside of her door amidst the clutter of her polaroids. She begins to unpack her backpack, sorting quickly through what she needed and what she didn’t. “Fun fact? Friends don’t smother new friends.”

Rosalie rolls her eyes. “Would it be so terrible to allow me to get to know you? I’m curious. Let me be curious.”

“You have until lunch before you start to get on my nerves.”

“You could never tire of me.” Rosalie rolls her pretty gold eyes.

She hates that she might be right. Jules had struggled to understand the intensity of her feelings for this girl when they had been perfect strangers, but now that she was adamant in spending so much time with her, it felt like overexposure. Everything was suddenly _too much_ , and she felt as if her skin was on fire. The entire situation just felt wrong, like she was trapped in someone else’s story. It didn’t make sense, none of it did. Why did the blonde care so much? Why couldn’t she leave her alone? Why was her whole family watching her? The questions were endless, a storm brewing within her mind- a repeat of Saturday’s showers. Her every thought had flickered back to sweeping golden hair then, but now Rosalie was _here_ , right in front of her, and her sickly sweet scent was overwhelming her.

She hadn’t noticed the blonde herding her without touch into their shared homeroom, too busy readjusting to her new reality while battling her own morning brain-drain. She had never enjoyed socializing this much this early, least of all when she felt as tired as she did. She felt like her nerves were exposed.

And then, the feeling doubled- a smiling mountain of a boy sat at the end of _her_ table. Everything inside her screamed for retreat, screamed for her to dig her heels down and pivot, to race out of the door and never return. To flee from Forks itself if it meant she would never have to speak to a Cullen again. Never have to feel their strange eyes on her skin. It’s politeness that wins out her internal war, the resolute knowledge that to run would be to cause a scene. To raise unwanted questions.

_How did he know they were going to sit together? Jules hadn’t accepted until she was in the car with Rosalie earlier this morning. Why was he sitting there? What the fuck is happening?_

“Hi! Juliette, right? I’m Emmett.” His grin is terrifyingly wide, dimples deeper than craters in his perfect porcelain skin. “Oh, you don’t mind, do you? We moved here while you were gone, the window’s kinda nice.”

Jules turns to shoot a betrayed glare at Rosalie, but the blonde is prepared for her. “I was always going to give you a choice.”

She doubted that. If anything, it seemed like Rosalie hadn’t given her a single choice since she had decided to insert herself into her life. The charming blonde was beyond simply getting on her nerves now- she was well on her way to growing into the bane of her existence. She tried not to take it out on the sweet southern boy sat at her table. “Just Jules, not a morning person, not up for small talk.”

“Duly noted.” Emmett grins as she slips past him into the window seat, the furthest possible from his massive shadow.

“What’s your favourite movie?”

Jules groaned, the sound stretching low and loud as she stretched forward languidly like a house cat, slumping her arms over her backpack in front of her. She let her chin drop over her forearms, pouting as the adoptive siblings grinned matching grins next to her. _How dare they look this good at this hour._ “It’s too early in the morning to socialize, you incessant hellion. Leave me alone.”

This only made Emmett break, guffawing loud once more with full rolling belly laughter- not that Jules could hear it as the faint giggle directly at her side rings in her ears. An honest-to-god _giggle_. This girl would be the death of her.

Frustrated and far too tired from all her emotional and mental stress this morning, Jules only turns her gaze forward, pouting more like a tired, cranky child. She had no idea how endearing she looked in that moment. Gone was the mask of indifference, of casual and cool charisma. For the first time, Jules appeared her own age, childish in her reluctant surrender. Not for the first time, Jules contemplated another break for the door. She regretted her choice in always sitting in the back now, there was no easy escape. She felt very much cornered by the two intrusive teenagers sandwiching her between them and the windows.

“You have such a colourful vocabulary. Did you do well in English back in France?” Rosalie inquires, and for a moment Jules blinks, forgetting that she had already told the girl the basics of her whole life story the first time they’d met. _Great job Jules_. “Or did you speak in English at home?”

“Not particularly.” She admits. “I um, I called my Uncle often. He doesn’t speak French. I used to spend my summers here with him as well.”

That flicker of pain skips across Rosalie’s expressive eyes once more, her smile falling. “You and Chief Swan are close.”

“He’s all I have left.” Jules repeats, but there’s so much more emotion in those words now. Charlie meant so much more to her than a simple guardian. He was her _family_. She would do unspeakable things in order to keep him safe, without a hint of hesitation- of this she was certain. Then she grimaces, the guilt nagging in the back of her mind. _Bella. I should call her, check in. Shit._ “Well, I have a cousin- his daughter, Bella? But we haven’t seen each other in years.”

“She doesn’t live with you.” Rosalie seems to be trying to fit the puzzle pieces together while Emmett listens curiously, his entire musclebound torso twisted around to face them.

“Non. I think Uncle Charlie and Renée split when Bella was one-ish. I’ve never quite cared for the woman, to be honest. She never gave Uncle Charlie a choice.” She shake her head. “I mean, my mum had just passed. Who takes someone’s daughter away from them when they’ve just lost their sister? _Épouvantable.”_

“And that’s why you care so deeply for him? Because you’re both alone.” Rosalie tries to psychoanalyze her again, but Jules scrunches up her nose in distaste. “I’m sorry…I’m just- trying to figure you out.”

“I’m not a riddle to unravel.” She grumbles with a roll of her eyes, still resting languidly cuddling her backpack. There’s no bite to her tone anymore, it’s soft- as if it took her far too much energy to even project her voice for their benefit. “I care for him because he’s my family. I’m sure you of all people would understand.”

And she does, the emotions flickering within those clear golden pools staring directly at her. Still, it’s Emmett who responds, not her. “Yeah, we’re real protective of our family. Right Rosie?”

“Rosie?” Jules’ head perks up, grin wide and eyes alight.

“I’ll paint your truck pink if you dare.” Rosalie's shutdown is casual and swift. Jules’ expression drops at once, the horror clear as day in her eyes as she furrowed her brow.

“You wouldn’t.” Jules isn’t sure, but she wants to call her bluff regardless. “If anyone asked, I would tell them you did it for me. You would never allow your handiwork to look so vile, it would be slander.”

And she’s right, it seems, as Rosalie hums as her chin rises only slightly with smug pride up in the air, the picture of haughtiness. And then Jules is distracted,her slow mind catching up. “Wait…if you love cars so much, why a BMW?”

“You don’t like it?” Rosalie frowns at once.

“No, I would not say that. It just…it doesn’t suit you.” Jules decides. The siblings peer curiously at her, and she knows she’s about to admit to more than she intended for, laying out more of her cards on the table. She grimaces at the thought. “I assume the wrangler is yours Emmett, non? Your siblings are too young to drive. Or, is it your twin’s?”

“It’s mine.” Emmett seems proud that she noticed his jeep, his chest pushing out like a silverback. 

“Right. It suits you. The bulk, the ruggedness. You seem like the outdoorsy type. I’m not far off, yes?” Jules offers, and the boy nods, amused. Rosalie was still frowning as she turned back to her. “From what little time we have spent together, you seem more… _je ne sais pas_. I feel like a vintage would have suited you better.”

“The wrangler is for all of us, we enjoy camping together.” Rosalie shakes her head. “The BMW was a hand-me-down, it used to be my father’s car before he got a new one.”

“It came out a few months ago?” Jules catches her in her lie, frowning.

Rosalie appears sheepish, sharing a glance with Emmett, who only looked amused. “We…try to be discreet. Our family is quite wealthy, we don’t want to attract unwanted attention.”

Emmett cuts her off before she can argue that this was a ridiculous notion, _obviously_ they were wealthy- they were currently swathed in Dior and Armani. “How do you know so much about cars anyway?”

Jules flushes furiously. “I enjoy pretty things.”

“And yet you want to restore an F150.” Rosalie chuckles at her.

“Sentimental value.” Jules shrugs, reaching for her coffee.

Rosalie watches, waiting until she’s done taking a long draw from the rich, almost-black liquid within the stainless steel tumbler. “What’s your favourite car?”

“’61 Jaguar E-Type. Yours?” She shoots back.

Rosalie smirks.“’65 Corvette Mako Shark II.”

“Mmmm, that was a _gorgeou_ s car.” Jules moans, eyes fluttering shut as she pictures the familiar model in her mind. Rosalie chuckles next to her. “The lines on that thing was crazy. I wish it went into production.”

“I like my cars American-made.” Rosalie admits. “It’s the only reason why I wouldn’t choose a BMW for myself. Still, it’s red and it’s convertible. I suppose it will have to do.”

“You like red, don’t you?” Jules smiles with amusement, sipping more coffee.

“Red has always been my colour…recently, though, I’ve found myself growing quite fond of blue.”

Jules fails to hear the teasing in her tone, nor see Emmett flick his sister’s arm faster than the speed of light. She only hummed her acknowledgement, sipping more coffee as Mister Varner began to call out the register. A part of her was glad that Rosalie had been so persistent and intrusive, enjoying the easy flow of their conversation, of their shared interests and shared humour. She enjoyed the banter more than she would care to admit. Jules knew that the more the two Cullens spoke to her, the more she was adjusting to them, adapting to all their quirks and the strange gut feeling they invoked within her. A part of her was grateful for it. 

The other part pondered if they were doing it on purpose.


	14. Chapter XIV: Tomorrow Comes Today

It wasn’t that Jules exactly disliked spending time with Rosalie Hale. If anything, their conversations flowed freely, and the more they spoke the more they seemed to share as common interests, from Jules' extensive knowledge in American Cinema that spanned generations worth of pop culture thanks to her upbringing, or their equally longwinded debates on what era of car design had the best aesthetic appeal. It was more that she could not trust that any of it was real. She could see it now, realizing she’d been too much of an idiot gawking at the exterior to notice what lay just beneath. Too busy focusing on Rosalie’s soft, seraphic voice to fully comprehend what she _meant_ as opposed to what she _said._ There was something there in her expressive eyes, extraordinary as they were in hue. If Jules looked past the exquisite surface, she could see the kaleidoscope of pain swirling in those eyes of hers, see the strange girl behind the godly mirage.

Hurt, pity, sorrow, regret, guilt…the emotions mixed together like the tender weaving of a tapestry, until one could no longer be distinguished from the other, until the melancholia hidden behind her briefly amused smiles threatened to overwhelm her. No- that was wrong, she _did_ seem happy, at least in her presence. Either it was genuine or she was a ridiculously gifted actress, but Jules did not like to think the new friend that had thrust herself upon her so vehemently would be so callous as to lie to her about her joy, as brief as it might have been.

It was when their conversation lulled that she began to see past the illusion, see past the perfect mask she seemed to wear. They were mere flickers, the purse of her soft lips, the barest furrow of a brow as those morose eyes stared directly ahead, dainty hands a flurry of motion as she took perfect notes in their shared classes. Jules had suspected that something strange was afoot, there was no natural or logical explanation as to why someone would be so bizarrely invested in a new friendship to the extent that Jules could not even go to the bathroom without her faithful shadow at her side. _I mean sure, it’s unspoken girl code to go to the bathroom together, but come on_.

Despite her unease, what she began to see in Rosalie Hale had created a fork in her spiral of unending doubts, and suddenly the _why_ began to matter more to her than the _what_ when it came to whatever the Cullens were up to. She loathed the bitter paranoia the source of her affections had brought out in her, wistful for simpler times like a year ago when her greatest worry was finishing off her biology homework in time to convince Charlie to let her go camping with Sam and Leah.

With her awareness came her wariness, her guard back up as she allowed Rosalie to join her for lunch at her table by the windows. It didn’t take long for her family to join them, as Rosalie had warned her they would well ahead of time- a move Jules had appreciated until it began a whole new spiral of thought. _How does she know exactly what to say to make me agree to everything she wants?Or am I just such a fool I’ve let her twist me around her pinky within a day of being by her side? Ugh, stop it Jules._

It’s Edward that breaks her out of it, toying with the stem of an apple while Alice and Emmett argued over who would get control of the TV once they got home. “How do you ignore the staring?”

His voice was soft, somehow gentler still than even Rosalie’s, but this somehow only served to make the strain in his tone clearer. He seemed frustrated- agitated, even. Jules blinked out of her stupor, before furrowing her eyebrows at the annoyingly pretty boy with tousled hair sat across the table from her and Emmett.

“I don’t.” She admits, her flat tone cutting through the multiple conversations at her table as all the Cullens turn to her, dark and golden eyes staring her down directly. Jules tries her hardest not to bristle despite the goosebumps. “You cannot control how other people feel about you, but you can control how much you care about it.”

This was only half true. Jules knew, at least in theory, that she _could_ use her gift on someone else, force them to look away from her- but the mere fleeting thought was more than enough to send shivers down her spine. This was not who she was. This was not who she _chose_ to be.

Edward’s lips tilted up on one side, a rueful lopsided smile. Paired with the bitterness in his eyes, Jules could see why most of the girls in their school had dubbed him- incorrectly- to be the most attractive of the Cullens. He was the sheer epitome of broody teen heartthrob. “Perhaps my issue lies in how _much_ I care what other people think then.”

“Perhaps.” Jules can’t help her amused smile, teasing the way he spoke. She could feel a headache coming on the same way she could taste rain in the air before it began to pour, her usually bright eyes softer, tired from all her focus on unravelling the riddle of Rosalie Hale. Just as her restlessness had spiked twicefold encountering both Emmett and Rosalie together, it had multiplied extensively in the presence of the entirety of the Cullen clan, transforming into a buzzing sensation behind her eyes and a buzzing sensation in the tips of her fingers. “It’s energy wasted, if you ask me. A few more years and you’ll never have to see their faces or hear from them again. People can be as inconsequential as you like to your life, it’s your own choice who you let in and who you keep out.”

“And you?” Edward challenged, leaning forward on the table on his crossed forearms. Jules raised an eyebrow. “Why do you choose to keep everyone out?”

Before Jules could object, Edward persisted. “I can see how uncomfortable we all make you. You don’t enjoy making connections with new people. Why?”

“Edward that’s enough.” Rosalie hisses at her brother, her expression venomous. Jules blinks at her, frowning as the two siblings seem to glare with such hatred at each other that it was almost palpable. It was surprising to her- this was a side to Rosalie she had not yet seen. “God, do you have to be such a freak? What is this, an intervention? Leave her alone. Jesus.”

“Ignore him, I do.” Rosalie turns to her, eyebrows furrowed together with worry, tone so abruptly gentle that it almost gave Jules whiplash.

“No, um, it’s fine.” She shakes her head. “I mean…he is not wrong, hmm? I like to keep my circle small, I don’t see the point in having so many friends that you cannot invest in them and care for them as deeply as you could if you only had a few people to focus on.”

Another half-truth, but the rant flowed freely from her silver tongue with the ease of practiced perfection. Jules had learnt the hard way that the more friends she had, the more she would end up in group situations- and group situations meant there was more risk in her accidentally revealing her gift. She didn’t want to stop using it entirely- she wasn’t sure if she even could, as dependent and as reflexive as it was. Her gift felt like an extension of herself, a third limb. She knew she had to practice and work out the muscles to be able to do much with it, but it paid off where it mattered and when she had no use for it she would pretend it didn’t exist. She didn’t want to be a superhero, she wasn’t sure if she even cared for being a regular hero- like her Uncle Charlie. The truth was Jules was selfish, and she was afraid. It was her fear that made her so reckless, her fear that had honed her survival instincts to the point that she was now seemingly terrified of teenagers.

“No, it’s more than that.” Edward pushed. “You don’t trust easily…no, you don’t trust _at all_.”

 _Well could you blame me?_ Jules tried not to let her bitterness show, containing it as she always did behind a cheeky smirk.“I find that trust is better earned than given away freely, non? Much like love.”

“That’s no way to live, don’t you think?” Rosalie joined in, eyebrows still furrowed, seemingly almost reluctant as the worried words spilled from her lips. “I mean…what if you miss your chance and you don’t find love before the end? Could you live with that?”

“You mean if I were to die young?” Jules frowned, struggling to follow the strange turn their conversation had taken. The entire table was listening to her now, waiting for her patiently as she sorted through her own thoughts and emotions on a concept she had not thought of recently. She didn’t like to dwell on the topic of death. Her eyes were distant as she rolled her shoulders, lips pursing with consideration. “Hmmm, plausible, yes. One cannot know if they might be hit by a truck-“

_Doubtful. I could just push against the truck or jam the wheels, theoretically. Hmm. I should’ve considered this more._

_“-_ or struck by lightning. Still, what’s the point of living life if you’re looking for death at every turn? Non. I will not be rushed. If it were meant to be, it will be. If I met the love of my life, fine. But the last thing I will ever do is settle.” Jules waves off, standing by her beliefs. “Death is not a choice, but life is. It is up to you how you choose to live. I choose not to waste my time on what others choose to think of me. I choose not to waste my time on settling for less than I desire. I choose not to trust until someone shows me that they value that trust. Life is a choice.”

It seemed she had struck a nerve as the silence rang across the table, tiny fairy-like Alice sharing a look of discomfort with comically gigantic Emmett next to her. Jules only frowned in confusion as her eyes flicked between the siblings. She didn’t understand how her own thoughts could cause such a stir. Before she can ask, Edward speaks again.

“My sister causes you discomfort.” It was not a question, but an observation- one that Rosalie visibly takes quite a great deal of offence to if her scowl gives any inclination.

“No, your sister _irks_ me. There’s a difference.” Jules felt her lips twitch upward as she leaned back, arm hanging over the back of her chair as she raised her juice box up to her lips. “She has a terrible habit of trying to psychoanalyze me- something you seem to share, hmm? Is it a Cullen family trait?”

“Deflection.” Rosalie’s eyes spark.

“Distraction.” Jules fires back. Rosalie raises an eyebrow at her. “All day, that’s what you’ve been up to, isn’t it? You’ve been trying to make me feel comfortable around you. A forced adjustment period. Why?”

“I didn’t think it was in you to be so direct.” Rosalie challenged.

“I didn’t think it was in you to be so dizzying.” Jules squinted. Rosalie waited, and once more, the rest of the Cullens watched on as if the two were playing a prize tennis match, their verbal parrying akin to a poker match- it was only a matter of time before one folded and the other showed all their cards. They were trying to provoke each other. “One minute you’re trying to be my brand new best friend, the next you’re planning my funeral. The former seems fake, the latter seems illogical. I can’t tell what’s up or down around you- I can’t even tell what’s _real_ about you.”

Rosalie frowns. “Don’t be silly, I’ve been nothing but straight with you.”

“Have you?” Jules raised an eyebrow. “Then why won’t you let me be alone, even for a minute?”

She had her there. And in Rosalie’s brief pause, in her mere split-second hesitation, Jules pounced. “You’re hiding something.”

She seems pleased with herself, her lips stretched wide into the laziest of smiles, her eyes shimmering with smug mischief. Rosalie’s beautiful features dropped into that same scowl as before, a scoff slipping from her far more naturally than her honeyed words all morning. This only served to make Jules feel more certain of her paranoia, the relief injecting into her veins that it had not been misplaced.

“You don’t want to know what it is.” Edward frowned at her, adorably perplexed with his dark brows looming shadows over his pretty eyes. He never questioned her, it seemed, cutting straight through to commentating on her own decisions as if she were a fascinating nature documentary. 

“Are you a cult?” Jules raised an eyebrow at him. He shook his head with a dismissive snort. She turned her gaze to Emmett, who was sporting a roguish dimpled grin at her antics. “Are you planning to bury my body in the woods?”

“Only if you can’t afford a spot in the town graveyard.” Emmett retorts, playing along cheekily.

Jules cracks a grin. “Then fine.”

“That’s it?” Rosalie seemed frustrated with her. “Just like that?”

“You have secrets. So what?” Jules shrugged as she leaned forward once more, returning half her attention to her lunch. “I don’t need to know them if you _actually_ want to be my friend. I just need to know the _real_ you. None of that friendly new townie type bullshit, yes? I hate small talk, it makes me itch. And all the twenty questions stuff needs to stop. It feels like an interrogation.”

“You need to be in control.” Rosalie seems to finally understand, her crestfallen eyes filled with remorse. Jules wrinkled up her nose with distaste. _Control._ The Cullens seemed to be using that word far too much around her, and she didn’t much care for it. There was no logical way they could know about her gift, none of them had seen it- she’d been far too careful since her near slip-up with their father and she’d had no reason to skate as she usually did to school with Rosalie as her personal supermodel riding in on a figurative white steed. Still, the unwitting coincidence sent warning bells ringing in the back of her mind, ones she masked to the best of her ability.“You need boundaries.”

“Don’t we all?” Jules frowned, biting into her green apple with a loud crunch, chewing delicately and swallowing before she elaborated. “I don’t need to know your secrets, I just need to know _you_.”

“That seems like a fair deal, non?” She raised an eyebrow. “I won’t question why you’ve decided to be my personal bodyguards. If that’s how you wish to spend your time and energy, fine. Why not?”

_Well, at least I won’t question it to your lovely face._

“We haven’t given you any reason to trust us.” Edward was still flummoxed by her sudden shift in demeanour.

“Ah, but you have.” She glanced up from her tray at him bemused. “You are not _hiding_ that you are hiding something from me, non? Therefore, there is an ulterior motive. If you do not disprove that you _have_ said ulterior motive, then I know _exactly_ what I’m dealing with- just not the specifics. I can live without the specifics. I don’t need the specifics. I just need to know _why_ you’re doing this, not the _what_.”

“What?” Alice snapped, the frustration clear in the line of her perfectly arched brows as she pulled a face at her.

“ _Damn_ , you confused Tink. That’s some skill you’ve got there, kid.” Emmett chuckled with a shake of his head.

“There is a reason you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing, yes?” Jules tried to make herself clearer, still amused.

“Yes.” Rosalie confirmed in a heartbeat, her absolute belief in her motives clear from the way her tone made the singular word sound like a gavel against a block.

“And it is important to you?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“And you cannot tell me why?”

“No.”

“Then that is all there is to it, hmm?” Jules smiled, pleased. “Just promise me one thing?”

Rosalie frowned at her, waiting with furrowed brows once more.

“Whatever it is, whatever you do- nothing happens to Charlie. _D’accord_?” Jules raised a two fingered salute up to her lips, pressing a kiss against them before holding it up towards Rosalie. Her eyes dropped to her fingers as if it were an alien limb. Jules rolls her eyes. “You’re supposed to kiss your fingers and press them against mine. It’s a type of pinky swear. You break it, I break you.”

“Easy there bearcat, you shouldn’t dream of such a thing.” Rosalie admonished playfully, her eyes sparkling with genuine delight as she pouted her lips and pressed her fingers against them.

As their fingertips brushed, Jules tried desperately to _not_ notice the way Rosalie’s touch felt like an ice cube against her warm skin. She’d made a promise, one she intended to keep no matter how much her mind screamed out all the irregularities surrounding her.

_What have I just signed myself up for?_


End file.
